Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2012, published 102nd ILC session (2013)

Minimum Wage Fixing Machinery (Agriculture) Convention, 1951 (No. 99) - Austria (Ratification: 1953)

Article 2 of the Convention. Partial payment of minimum wages in kind. The Committee recalls its previous comment in which it noted that while the partial payment of wages in kind is often regulated by collective agreements, and the value of benefits in kind is generally based on official rates, in some provinces it may also be subject to private agreement. In its latest report, the Government once again refers to the Lower Austria Agricultural Labour Regulations, 1973, in particular sections 17 and 19 which provide for the partial payment of wages in the form of goods or housing, and indicates that with respect to benefits in kind the legal basis is always to be found in either the law or a collective agreement of the federal provinces. While noting the Government’s explanations, the Committee observes that section 21(1) of the Lower Austria Agricultural Labour Regulations provides that the type, nature and extent of partial payment of wages in the form of use of land and livestock are to be agreed upon between the employer and the employee. The Committee therefore understands that although the partial payment of wages in the form of permission to raise livestock or farm on agricultural land is expressly authorized by law, the conditions for such payment, including the monetary value of the benefits in question to be deducted from the cash wages, are left to be determined by individual agreement, which is at variance with the requirements of this Article of the Convention. The Committee wishes to refer, in this connection, to paragraph 149 of its 2003 General Survey on protection of wages in which it pointed out that the rationale behind Article 4 of Convention No. 95 (which is practically reproduced in Article 2 of Convention No. 99) is that whenever wage conditions, such as payment in kind, deductions or pay intervals, are left to be freely determined by the two parties in the employment relationship, there is a real risk of abuse, since the employee is generally in a weaker position and therefore often ready to accept the conditions offered by the employer, however, onerous or unfavourable. The Committee accordingly requests the Government to consider all appropriate steps to ensure that the national legislation does not contain any provisions which permit payments in kind in the agricultural sector by virtue of individual agreement or consent.