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

Forty-Hour Week Convention, 1935 (No. 47) - Australia (Ratification: 1970)

Article 1 of the Convention. Forty-hour week. The Committee notes the comments of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) dated 1 September 2008 on the application of the Convention. According to these comments, excessively long working hours are causing numerous problems for workers. Based on three different sources of information, the ACTU maintains that Australian workers increasingly work in excess of the statutory limit of 38 hours per week. First, according to data published by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in 2007, the male average full-time working week was 45 hours and the female average full-time working week was 42 hours. In addition, the Australian Work and Life Index 2008, based on survey research undertaken by academics at the University of South Australia, reported that 22.5 per cent of respondents worked 48 hours or more, including 31.7 per cent of male respondents and 11.9 per cent of female respondents. Finally, a survey conducted in 2007 by the Workplace Research Centre of the University of Sydney, found that 39 per cent of workers were working longer than standard hours while 23 per cent of workers were working for 50 hours or more a week. The Committee requests the Government to transmit any comments it may wish to make in response to the observations of the ACTU.

The Committee is raising other matters in a request addressed directly to the Government.