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

Weekly Rest (Industry) Convention, 1921 (No. 14) - North Macedonia (Ratification: 1991)

Articles 4 and 5 of the Convention. Total or partial exceptions. The Committee notes the information supplied by the Government in its first detailed report on the application of the Convention. More concretely, the Committee notes that section 134 of the Labour Relations Law of 22 July 2005 (Official Gazette No. 62/2005) provides for a weekly rest of at least 24 uninterrupted hours, in principle on Sundays, except when due to objective technical or organizational reasons the employee is granted weekly rest on some other day in the week. The Committee requests the Government to provide additional explanations on the categories of employees who are authorized to work on Sundays for technical or organizational reasons. In addition, the Committee notes that, with the exception of section 117 which refers to overtime work within a ten-hour-per-week limit and section 119 which refers to additional work performed in cases of natural disasters, the Labour Relations Law does not contain any provisions regarding compensatory rest granted weekly in situations where employees might have to perform work on the weekly rest day.

In this respect, the Committee wishes to recall that any total or partial exceptions that the Government might wish to authorize, in accordance with Articles 4 and 5 of the Convention, would need to be in compliance with the conditions set out therein (i.e. account taken of all proper humanitarian and economic considerations, prior consultations with responsible associations of employers and workers and, as far as possible, provision for compensatory periods of rest). It also recalls that weekly rest being essential to the workers’ health and well-being, recourse to such exceptions should be limited to what is strictly necessary. The Committee therefore requests the Government to specify the circumstances in which temporary exceptions from the general weekly rest scheme are permitted.

Article 6. List of exceptions. The Committee would appreciate if the Government would communicate together with its next report a list of all the exceptions, whether total or partial (including diminutions or suspensions), from the basic weekly rest rule as well as any available information on the practical implementation of those exceptions.

Part V of the report form. Application in practice. The Committee would be grateful if the Government would supply general information on the application of the Convention in practice, including, for instance, statistics on the number of workers covered by the relevant legislation, extracts from reports of the labour inspection services showing the number of violations observed and sanctions imposed in matters related to weekly rest, copies of any collective agreements containing clauses on weekly rest, etc.