Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2013, published 103rd ILC session (2014)

Weekly Rest (Industry) Convention, 1921 (No. 14) - New Zealand (Ratification: 1938)

Article 2 of the Convention. Right to 24-hour weekly rest. The Committee notes that the labour legislation does not expressly provide for a weekly rest of at least 24 hours to be granted wherever possible to the whole staff of an undertaking at the same time and on the traditional or customary non-working days. The Committee also notes that despite recent initiatives, such as the Employment Relations Amendment Act 2013 and its 2013 Blueprint for Health & Safety at Work, the Government has taken no steps towards giving specific legislative expression to the workers’ entitlement to 24 consecutive hours of rest every week, as required under Article 2 of the Convention. In this connection, the Committee notes the comments of Business New Zealand according to which the Convention promotes prescription over principle whereas the New Zealand legislation makes provision for any employee who considers he has been working excessive hours to seek redress. In the view of Business New Zealand, imposing specific time limits on hours of work by legislative means provides no greater guarantee that those limits will be observed than making provision, as the New Zealand’s legislation does, for observance of the weekly rest principle. In addition, the Committee notes the comments of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions (NZCTU), which disagrees with the Government’s position that section 11B of the Minimum Wage Act effectively ensures that a worker should enjoy at least 24 hours’ rest in every period of seven days. According to the NZCTU, the non mandatory language of section 11B allows the parties considerable latitude to compromise these requirements. Furthermore, considering that private sector union membership and collective bargaining coverage are both below 10 per cent, the NZCTU states that the inherent inequality of bargaining power between individual workers and employers means that much negotiation in relation to hours and shifts takes place on a take-it-or-leave-it basis by the employers. In its response, the Government acknowledges the importance of providing clarity through appropriate legislation and indicates that it has initiated reforms that address both the recommendation of the April 2013 report by an Independent Task Force on Workplace Health and Safety to develop regulations addressing fatigue and long hours of work, as well as the recommendation of the Royal Commission to develop a regulatory framework for the mining industry which would include, among others, a specific requirement to consider shift work and fatigue issues. The Government also refers to the new Approved Code of Practice for Safety and Health in Forest Operations, which will support the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s forestry harm reduction campaign, which aims to reduce the unacceptably high rate of accidents in the forestry sector. However, the Committee observes that with respect to the right to weekly rest, which is the subject matter of this Convention, the Government provides no new information as to whether and how it intends to bring the national legislation into closer conformity with the Convention by explicitly recognizing the workers’ entitlement to a minimum 24-hour rest in every seven-day period. The Committee once again expresses the firm hope that the Government will consider suitable action to fully transpose the basic requirement of the Convention into domestic legislation.