Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2003, published 92nd ILC session (2004)

Hours of Work (Industry) Convention, 1919 (No. 1) - Slovakia (Ratification: 1993)

The Committee takes note of the Labour Code (Act No. 311 of 2001), as amended up to November 2003.

According to section 87, paragraph 1, of the Labour Code, an employer may arrange working time unevenly for individual weeks, after negotiation with the employees’ representatives or agreement with the employee, if the nature of the work or operational conditions do not allow for working time to be distributed evenly over individual weeks, while weekly working time may be averaged for a period of up to four months. Furthermore, section 87, paragraph 2, permits an averaging of weekly working time for a period of up to one year if it concerns activities that require different work demands in the course of the year, and for specific organizational units or types of works. For these provisions, section 87, paragraph 4, sets a daily limit of 12 working hours.

The Convention provides for an averaging of working time in Articles 2(c), 4 and 5. Articles 2(c), and 4, concern only shift work, while section 87, paragraphs 1 and 2, of the Labour Code is not restricted to shift work.

Article 5 of the Convention permits furthermore that in exceptional cases where it is recognized that the provisions of Article 2 cannot be applied, but only in such cases, agreements between workers’ and employers’ organizations concerning the daily limit of work over a longer period of time may be given the force of regulations. The Committee has acknowledged that the spirit of this provision may be said to be respected where this method of calculation is formally authorized and where consultations with the employers’ and workers’ organizations are ensured in a general way (see General Survey of 1967, paragraph 154).

Section 87 of the Labour Code of 2001, however, provides no safeguard through the formal and obligatory recourse to consultations with employers’ and workers’ representatives. Section 87 allows for an uneven distribution of working hours with the mere agreement of the employee. The negotiations with the employees’ representative mentioned in section 87 of the Labour Code of 2001 are not obligatory.

The Committee wishes to stress that exceptions to the general working time of eight daily and 48 weekly working hours, as established in the Convention, should not, as a general rule, be left to the discretion of the individual employer, even with the agreement of the worker. Permanent and temporary exceptions to the general working time always require, besides the cases of accidents, urgent work or "force majeure" of Article 3 and the continuous processes of Article 4 of the Convention, workers’ participation, in order to safeguard workers’ interests and to ensure that daily or weekly limits of working hours do not jeopardize the health of the workers and leave sufficient room for their social activities.

The Committee requests the Government to provide information on the exceptions made under section 87, paragraphs 1 and 2, of the Labour Code and to indicate how it ensures that all exceptions to the ordinary working hours, as enshrined in Article 2, are in line with the requirements of the Convention.