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

Articles 1 and 3 of the Convention. Minimum wage fixing machinery. The Committee notes that the Government’s report essentially reproduces information already communicated previously and does not reply to the specific points that the Committee has been raising over the past ten years, namely the extension of minimum wage protection to industrial sectors other than the rice-milling and cigar- and cheroot-rolling industries, the revision of the minimum wage rates in force, the evolution of minimum wage rates as compared to the evolution of economic indicators such as the inflation rate in recent years, and the enforcement of the minimum wage legislation in practice. The Committee notes with regret that, whereas the Government indicated earlier that the extension of the minimum wage fixing machinery to other industries such as the printing, oil-milling and garment industries was under consideration and that the minimum wage rates applicable to the rice-milling and the cigar- and cheroot-rolling industries were no longer in line with market wages and needed to be adjusted, its last report remains completely silent on these matters. The Committee further notes that the labour inspection statistics provided by the Government refer only to the number of inspection visits carried out in 2007–08 but give no indication as to the results obtained in terms of violations observed, sanctions imposed or amounts of wages recovered. The Committee therefore asks the Government to make every possible effort to collect and provide up to date information on the application of the Convention in law and practice and also to indicate the concrete measures it intends to take for the extension of minimum wage coverage to sectors other than rice-milling and cigar- and cheroot-rolling and the readjustment of existing minimum wage rates.

[The Government is asked to reply in detail to the present comments in 2010.]