Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2009, published 99th ILC session (2010)

Article 7, paragraph 2, and Article 8, paragraph 3, of the Convention. Compensatory rest. Further to its previous comment concerning section 72 of the Labour Code, which is not fully consistent with Articles 7 and 8 of the Convention since it provides that work performed on a day of weekly rest may be compensated either by another rest day or by supplementary payment at double the normal rate, as the parties may agree, the Committee recalls that the Convention requires in all cases of permanent or temporary exemptions from the normal weekly rest scheme a compensatory rest period of a total duration at least equivalent to 24 hours. It therefore hopes that, in the ongoing process of the revision of the Labour Code, the Government will not fail to take the necessary steps in order to bring its legislation into full conformity with the requirements of the Convention in this regard.

In addition, the Committee notes that the Labour Code does not seem to regulate when the compensatory rest is to be taken or whether it should be continuous. It recalls that in the absence of specific rules in this connection, the compensatory rest risks to be unduly postponed or be divided into short periods. It is in this sense that Paragraph 3(a) of the Weekly Rest (Commerce and Offices) Recommendation, 1957 (No. 103), provides that special weekly rest schemes must be established in such a way that it would ensure that persons to whom such schemes apply do not work for more than three weeks without receiving the rest periods to which they are entitled. The Committee therefore requests the Government to provide in its next report additional explanations as to how the compensatory rest is implemented in practice, and to specify whether any rules have so far been issued concerning the regularity and continuity of such rest.

Part V of the report form. Application in practice. The Committee would be grateful if the Government would provide up to date information on the practical application of the Convention, including for instance, statistics on the number of workers covered by the relevant legislation, labour inspection results showing the number of offences observed and penalties imposed in connection with weekly rest, copies of collective agreements containing provisions on weekly rest schemes, etc.