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Article 6, paragraph 1, of the Convention. Weekly rest period. The Committee notes the Government’s explanations that paragraph 3 of section 156 of the Labour Relations Act must be read together with paragraph 2 of section 156, which states that the employer engaging a worker on the weekly rest day must grant the latter a compensatory rest period during the following week. According to the Government, paragraph 3 of section 156, in this case, implies that the employer must grant two days of rest in a 14-day period. The Committee nevertheless feels bound to point out, once again, that paragraph 3 of section 156 is still not very clear and adds strictly nothing to the provision of paragraph 2 of section 156. The Committee also notes that paragraph 2 of section 156, as drafted at present, does not reflect the idea of a compensatory rest period comprising not less than 24 consecutive hours in the week following the one in which he/she was deprived of the weekly day of rest and should be amended on these lines. The Committee invites the Government to re-examine the present wording of paragraphs 2 and 3 of section 156 of the Labour Relations Act to ensure that it conforms fully with requirements of the Convention on this point.

Article 7, paragraph 1, and Article 8, paragraph 1. Special weekly rest schemes and temporary exemptions from the weekly day of rest. The Committee notes that, according to the Government, paragraphs 2–4 of section 158 of the Labour Relations Act must be viewed as an exception to section 156: it allows the weekly rest period to be granted and taken within a maximum period of six months, in the case of shift work, because of the nature of the work or in anticipation of a certain amount of irregular work or an additional workload. Recalling that paragraph 1 of Article 7 and paragraph 1 of Article 8 of the Convention only authorize the establishment of special schemes or temporary exemptions in limited weekly rest circumstances, the Committee requests the Government to take the necessary measures to bring section 158 of the Labour Relations Act in conformity with this Article of the Convention. In this respect, the Committee wishes to draw the Government’s attention to Paragraph 3 of the Weekly Rest (Commerce and Offices) Recommendation (No. 103), which provides that special rest schemes should be established to avoid the persons concerned from working for more than three weeks without receiving the rest periods to which they are entitled.

Furthermore, the Committee notes that paragraph 2 of section 156 of the Labour Relations Act authorizes an exemption from the weekly day of rest for “objective, technical and organizational” reasons. Pointing out that the wording of this section is very open to interpretation, it requests the Government to indicate the measures taken to guarantee that these exemptions are limited to the situations listed in Articles 7 and 8 of the Convention.

Part V of the report form. Practical application. The Committee notes the statistical data provided by the Government concerning the violations to the weekly rest period registered by the inspection services in the commerce sector during the period 2003–08. It would be grateful if the Government would continue to provide general information on the practical application of the Convention, and especially statistical data concerning the number of workers covered by the legislation giving effect to the Convention, extracts from the reports of the inspection services indicating the number of violations to regulations relating to the weekly rest period that have been registered and the penalties applied, copies of relevant collective agreements, etc.

Furthermore, the Committee recalls the previous observation of the Association of Free Trade Unions of Slovenia (ZSSS) indicating that employers in commercial establishments in the retail sector usually threaten workers on a contract without limitation of time with layoff and workers on a fixed-term contract with not renewing their contract if they refuse to work on the weekly rest day. In its reply, the Government points out that if a worker employed under a contract without limitation of time is requested to work on the weekly day of rest in violation of the statutory and contractual provisions, as well as those under collective agreement, he or she is not committing any infraction by refusing to do this work; he or she may submit the matter to the labour inspection services who are bound to carry out an inquiry and, as the case may be, order the employer to comply with the law. Furthermore, any employer infringing the regulations concerning the weekly rest period incurs a fine. The Government stipulates that, if the employer breaks a contract on the grounds of a worker refusing to work, the latter is entitled to lodge an appeal to determine whether the contract has been broken illegally. It also adds that workers on a fixed-term contract enjoy the same protection as those workers with a contract without limitation of time.

Finally, the Committee notes the new observations by the ZSSS contained in the Government’s report, claiming that the figures in the reports of the labour inspection services do not reflect the actual number of violations of regulations on the weekly rest period, which are in fact much higher. According to the ZSSS, this discrepancy may be attributed to a lack of staff in the labour inspection services which make it impossible to monitor all enterprises in a satisfactory way. The ZSSS states that there are 82 labour inspectors to supervise more than 100,000 legal entities employing workers in the country. The Committee requests the Government to submit any comments it may wish to make on this matter.