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

Protection of Wages Convention, 1949 (No. 95) - Gabon (Ratification: 1960)

Article 12 of the Convention. Payment of wages at regular intervals. In its previous comments the Committee asked the Government to provide further information on the difficulties faced by certain branches of activity with regard to the regular payment of wages. The Government indicates in its report that it has not recorded any infringements of section 152 of the Labour Code, which establishes the principle of the payment of wages at regular intervals. It is the Committee’s understanding, however, that wage arrears persist in both the public and private sector, with problems of unpaid wages for several months in national education and public transport, and also in private aviation enterprises, telecommunications and electricity production and distribution. With reference to its General Survey of 2003 on protection of wages (paragraph 355), the Committee emphasizes that the quintessence of wage protection is the assurance of a periodic payment allowing the worker to organize his/her everyday life with a reasonable degree of certainty and security. Inversely, the delayed payment of wages or the accumulation of wage debts clearly contravene the letter and the spirit of the Convention and render the application of most of its other provisions simply meaningless. The Committee therefore repeats its request for information on the exact nature and extent of the problem, and on specific measures taken by the Government to rectify these situations.

Part V of the report form. Application in practice. The Committee again requests the Government to provide a general description of the application of the Convention, including, for instance, extracts from labour inspection service reports detailing the number and nature of the infringements reported, copies of official surveys relating to wage protection, information on difficulties encountered in the application of the Convention and any other particulars that would enable the Committee to evaluate the application of the Convention in practice.