Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2014, published 104th ILC session (2015)

Forty-Hour Week Convention, 1935 (No. 47) - Belarus (Ratification: 1956)

Other comments on C047

Direct Request

2014
2009
2004

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Article 1 of the Convention. Forty-hour week. Averaging of hours of work. Further to its previous comment, the Committee notes from the Government’s report that section 126(2) of the Labour Code establishes that in cases of working-time arrangements for special categories of workers the average daily working hours may not be superior to 12 for the reference period but that the Labour Code does not establish any absolute limit to daily or weekly hours of work in the context of such working arrangements. It also notes that according to section 126(5) of the Labour Code the reference period is established by the employer and may not exceed one calendar year. The Committee recalls that a reference period of one year for the averaging of hours of work for special categories of workers may authorize practices that would possibly lead to unreasonably long hours of work and would thus directly contradict the principle of the progressive reducing of hours of work laid down in the Convention. The Committee requests the Government once again to indicate the measures adopted or envisaged to limit daily and weekly hours of work as well as the reference period length, in the context of these schemes.

Overtime hours. The Committee notes Presidential Decree No. 156 of 5 April 2012 regulating overtime hours allowed with the agreement of the workers’ consent. The Committee notes that the number of hours of overtime annually permitted should not exceed 180 and that workers may not work more than ten hours overtime per week. It also notes that the maximum daily working hours including overtime hours must not exceed 12. The Committee considers that allowing working days of up to 12 hours might lead to excessively long hours and impact negatively on the worker’s health and work–family balance. Moreover, Decree No. 156 does not define the circumstances under which overtime may be authorized. The Committee recalls in this respect paragraph 79 of its General Survey of 1984 on working time in which it pointed out that undue facilitation of overtime, for example by not limiting the circumstances in which it may be permitted or by allowing relatively high maximums, could in the most egregious cases tend to defeat the objective of the Reduction of Hours of Work Recommendation, 1962 (No. 116), of a social standard of a 40-hour week and make irrelevant the provisions as to normal working hours. The Committee requests the Government to take all measures to ensure that national legislation on the principle of a 40-hour week is fully aligned with the requirements of the Convention and to continue to provide information on any further developments in this respect.