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

Minimum Wage Fixing Machinery (Agriculture) Convention, 1951 (No. 99) - Belgium (Ratification: 1968)

Article 4 of the Convention. Supervisory system and sanctions. In its previous comment, the Committee noted that the inspection services of the General Directorate of Supervision of Social Laws had identified more than 80 per cent of irregularities with respect to the regulations on wage protection in the agricultural and horticultural sectors. On the basis of the figures contained in the Government’s report and in the activity report of the General Directorate of Supervision of Social Laws for 2009 (page 142), it notes that the inspection services had revealed 75 irregularities out of the 88 cases examined. The Committee notes once again that illegal pay practices are particularly common in the agricultural sector and recalls that only the introduction of an adequate system of monitoring and sanctions would make it possible to avoid violations and to guarantee the respect of minimum wage rate regulations. It therefore requests the Government to take the necessary measures to ensure that employers and workers are informed of the minimum wage rates in the agricultural and horticultural sectors and to strengthen the system of monitoring and sanctions in these sectors, in accordance with Article 4 of the Convention.

Article 5 and Part V of the report form. Practical application. The Committee notes the information contained in the Government’s report on minimum wage developments in the agricultural and related sectors, between January 2009 and January 2011. It requests the Government to continue providing information on the practical application of the Convention, in particular statistics on the number of agricultural workers paid the minimum wage rate, and extracts from inspection services reports that specifically concern irregularities linked to the payment of minimum wage rates and the measures taken to counter this trend.