Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2013, published 103rd ILC session (2014)

Weekly Rest (Industry) Convention, 1921 (No. 14) - Hungary (Ratification: 1956)

Other comments on C014

Direct Request

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Articles 2, 4 and 5 of the Convention. Entitlement to weekly rest – Total or partial exceptions – Compensatory rest. The Committee notes that a new Labour Code, Act I of 2012 came into effect on 1 July 2012. It notes, in particular, that under section 105 of the new Labour Code, workers are entitled to two weekly rest days and they must be allocated at least one weekly rest day per month on a Sunday. Section 105 also provides that in the case of irregular work, one rest day must be granted in every week except for employees engaged in shift work or in seasonal jobs. The Committee accordingly requests the Government to specify how the basic standard of the Convention, that is 24-hour continuous rest per week, is given effect with regard to shift workers.

In addition, the Committee notes that work on a weekly rest day may exceptionally be performed on three separate grounds: in the case of regular Sunday work (section 101), overtime (section 108), and on-call and stand-by duty (section 110). In all these cases, work may be performed on a continuous rest day in a manner that possibly does not permit an uninterrupted rest of at least 24 hours, in which case the need for compensatory rest might arise. The Committee notes, in this regard, that whereas section 143(3) of the Labour Code provides that the employer may propose another day of rest as an alternative form of overtime compensation, sections 140(1) and 144(1) provide only for extra pay in the cases of regular Sunday work and on-call and stand-by duty. The Committee trusts that the Government will take at the next suitable occasion appropriate steps to ensure that when workers are required on whatever grounds to perform work on a weekly rest day, they are granted, as far as possible, compensatory rest irrespective of any monetary compensation.

Moreover, the Committee notes that under section 143(5) and (6) of the Labour Code, the compensatory rest that the employer may decide to propose in the case of overtime work must be granted at the latest during the month following the month when the overtime work was performed while by agreement of the parties, it may be provided at the latest by 31 December of the following year. The Committee wishes to recall, in this respect, that according to the spirit of the Convention workers should enjoy a minimum period of rest and leisure at as much as possible regular and reasonably short intervals, and it is in this sense that Paragraph 3 of the Weekly rest (Commerce and Offices) Recommendation, 1957 (No. 103) indicates that persons to whom special weekly rest schemes apply should not work for more than three weeks without receiving the rest periods to which they are entitled. The Committee accordingly requests the Government to re-examine the appropriateness of a provision that permits to defer the granting of compensatory rest for several months even if this is subject to prior agreement between the employer and the employee.