Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 1991, published 78th ILC session (1991)

Social Policy (Basic Aims and Standards) Convention, 1962 (No. 117) - Brazil (Ratification: 1969)

The Committee notes the Government's observations concerning the comments transmitted by the National Confederation of Industry and the National Confederation of Industrial Workers, both of which concerned section 462 of the Consolidation of Labour Laws (CLT) in relation to Article 12 of the Convention.

With regard to Article 12 of the Convention, the Committee notes the Government's statement that section 462 of the CLT is somewhat imprecise, but that both legal doctrine and jurisprudence consider that advances in excess of one month's wages are not possible. The Committee points out once again that, in view of this lack of precision and, as the Government indicated in other reports, in view of the lack of any specific provision regulating the advances authorised under section 462 of the CLT, it is necessary to take measures to give effect to this Article.

In this connection, the Committee recalls that this provision of the Convention lays down that the maximum amount and manner of repayment of advances on wages shall be regulated; that the competent authority shall limit the amount of advances which may be made to a worker in consideration of his taking up employment, and that the amount of advances permitted shall be clearly explained to the worker; and, finally, that any advance in excess of the amount laid down by the competent authority shall be legally irrecoverable and may not be recovered by the withholding of amounts of pay due to the worker at a later date. The Committee therefore hopes that the Government will take the necessary measures in the near future, as it announced in previous reports, to give effect to this Article of the Convention.

Finally, the Committee has noted the information communicated by FAO in its letter of 25 February 1991.