Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2007, published 97th ILC session (2008)

Minimum Wage-Fixing Machinery Convention, 1928 (No. 26) - Sierra Leone (Ratification: 1961)

The Committee notes that the Government’s report has not been received. It hopes that a report will be supplied for examination by the Committee at its next session and that it will contain full information on the matters raised in its previous direct request, which read as follows:

The Committee notes that in its last report, the Government indicated that the new draft labour legislation, once it was finally adopted, would clearly spell out the principles of minimum wage fixing in accordance with the requirements of the Convention. It also indicated that the Joint National Board, which comprises representatives of the social partners, had been set up to formulate a wages and income policy, while at present the various trade group councils were empowered to negotiate wages for unionized workers and to implement trade group agreements. The Committee requests the Government to provide additional information, including copies of any relevant legal texts, on the composition, mandate and functioning of the Joint National Board, especially as regards the method of determining or readjusting minimum wage levels. In addition, the Committee would be grateful if the Government could provide more detailed information on the activities of the trade group councils and transmit copies of any trade group agreements which may be currently in force and contain minimum wage rates for specific sectors of economic activity or groups of workers.

While recalling that the last time the Government supplied substantive information regarding the application of the Convention was in 1980, the Committee hopes that the Government will make every effort to collect and communicate in its next report full particulars on the effect given to the Convention in practice, including, for instance, statistics on the number and different occupational categories of workers covered by minimum wage regulations, information on the system of supervision and sanctions in respect of minimum wages, indications on the effect of existing minimum wage rates on the real income of workers, etc.