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

Hours of Work (Industry) Convention, 1919 (No. 1) - Saudi Arabia (Ratification: 1978)

Article 6(2) of the Convention. Limits on additional hours of work. In its previous comment, the Committee drew the Government’s attention to the fact that the Ministerial Order No. 2832 of 2006 fixing the overall number of authorized overtime at 480 hours per year is not consistent with the spirit of the Convention, which calls for reasonable limits prescribed in line with the general goal of the instrument, namely an eight-hour working day and 48-hour working week, as a legal standard sufficient to protect workers’ health and well-being. As the Committee has pointed out on several occasions, the objective of a reasonable annual limit is to avoid the risk of abuse by preventing excessive fatigue and ensuring reasonable leisure and opportunities for recreation and social life. The Committee recalls that at the time of the adoption of this Convention, the limits considered to be permissible amounted to a total of 60 hours a week in the case of permanent exceptions (work essentially intermittent or preparatory/complementary work) and 150 hours a year in the case of temporary exceptions (exceptional cases of pressure of work). As regards the non-industrial sector, at the time of the adoption of the Hours of Work (Commerce and Offices) Convention, 1930 (No. 30), such limits amounted to ten hours a day and 60 hours a week for intermittent work and ten hours a day and 54 hours a week for preparatory or complementary work. In its latest report, the Government explains that the objective of the adoption of the Ministerial Order No. 2832 was to establish a specific maximum limit as required under section 107 of the Labour Code. The Government further indicates that many enterprises do not reach this limit. The Committee requests the Government to consider appropriate steps in order to lower the annual limit of permissible overtime set out in Ministerial Order No. 2832 and bring it closer to the reasonable limits envisaged at the time of the adoption of the Convention. The Committee also requests the Government to provide statistical information, if available, concerning the number of workers effectively performing 480 overtime hours of work per year and the types of enterprises, industrial or others, which are mostly affected by such overtime work.