Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2011, published 101st ILC session (2012)

Protection of Wages Convention, 1949 (No. 95) - Paraguay (Ratification: 1966)

Article 2 of the Convention. Scope of application – Agricultural workers. The Committee has been commenting for several years on section 162 of the Labour Code, which expressly excludes rural workers (except those engaged in work of an industrial character) from the provisions pertaining to the protection of wages. In the absence of a Government reply on this point, the Committee once again requests the Government to take appropriate action to ensure that the Convention is fully applied to all persons to whom wages are paid or payable, and that consequently the protective coverage of the Labour Code is extended to all agricultural workers.

Article 4(1). Partial payment of wages in kind. The Committee notes that the Government’s report is once more silent on any legislative provision prohibiting the payment of wages in the form of liquor of high alcoholic content or of noxious drugs, as prescribed by this Article of the Convention. The Committee refers to paragraph 137 of its 2003 General Survey on the protection of wages in which it pointed out that “implementing legislation may give effect to this requirement either by means of a specific prohibition or through an authorization clause excluding alcohol or drugs. While a specific prohibition may be the most effective manner of securing compliance with this provision, the Convention does not appear to go as far as requiring this. It would seem sufficient for any authorization for the payment of wages in kind contained in laws or regulations, collective agreements or arbitration awards to exclude the possibility of paying wages in the above forms, so that any practice of this kind attracts the penal or other sanctions applicable to unauthorized forms of payment in kind”. The Committee again requests the Government to take the necessary measures in order to give full effect to this requirement of the Convention.

Part V of the report form. Application in practice. The Committee requests the Government to continue providing general information on the manner in which the Convention is applied in practice, including, for example, information concerning the number of workers covered by the relevant legislation, extracts from reports of the inspection services indicating the number and nature of violations reported and penalties imposed, and any difficulties experienced in the application of the Convention.

[The Government is asked to reply in detail to the present comments in 2012.]