Salary & Wages Administration

C1 Hours of Work (Industry) Convention, 1919 Convention Limiting the Hours of Work in Industrial Undertakings to Eight in the Day and Forty-eight in the Week (Note: Date of coming into force: 13:06:1921.) Convention:C001 Place:Washington Session of the Conference:1 Date of adoption:28:11:1919 Subject classification: Hours of Work Subject: Working Time See the ratifications for this ConventionDisplay the document in: French SpanishStatus: Instrument subject to a request for information. The General Conference of the International Labour Organisation, Having been convened at Washington by the Government of the United States of America on the 29 th day of October 1919, and Having decided upon the adoption of certain proposals with regard to the "application of the principle of the 8-hours day or of the 48-hours week", which is the first item in the agenda for the Washington meeting of the Conference, and Having determined that these proposals shall take the form of an international Convention, adopts the following Convention, which may be cited as the Hours of Work (Industry) Convention, 1919, for ratification by the Members of the International Labour Organisation, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of the International Labour Organisation: Article 1 1. For the purpose of this Convention, the term industrial undertaking includes particularly-- (a) mines, quarries, and other works for the extraction of minerals from the earth; (b) industries in which articles are manufactured, altered, cleaned, repaired, ornamented, finished, adapted for sale, broken up or demolished, or in which materials are transformed; including shipbuilding and the generation, transformation, and transmission of electricity or motive power of any kind; (c) construction, reconstruction, maintenance, repair, alteration, or demolition of any building, railway, tramway, harbour, dock, pier, canal, inland waterway, road, tunnel, bridge, viaduct, sewer, drain, well, telegraphic or telephonic installation, electrical undertaking, gas work, waterwork or other work of construction, as well as the preparation for or laying the foundations of any such work or structure; (d) transport of passengers or goods by road, rail, sea or inland waterway, including the handling of goods at docks, quays, wharves or warehouses, but excluding transport by hand. 2. The provisions relative to transport by sea and on inland waterways shall be determined by a special conference dealing with employment at sea and on inland waterways. 3. The competent authority in each country shall define the line of division which separates industry from commerce and agriculture. Article 2 The working hours of persons employed in any public or private industrial undertaking or in any branch thereof, other than an undertaking in which only members of the same family are employed, shall not exceed eight in the day and forty-eight in the week, with the exceptions hereinafter provided for: (a) the provisions of this Convention shall not apply to persons holding positions of supervision or management, nor to persons employed in a confidential capacity; (b) where by law, custom, or agreement between employers' and workers' organisations, or, where no such organisations exist, between employers' and workers' representatives, the hours of work on one or more days of the week are less than eight, the limit of eight hours may be exceeded on the remaining days of the week by the sanction of the competent public authority, or by agreement between such organisations or representatives; provided, however, that in no case under the provisions of this paragraph shall the daily limit of eight hours be exceeded by more than one hour; (c) where persons are employed in shifts it shall be permissible to employ persons in excess of eight hours in any one day and forty-eight hours in any one week, if the average number of hours over a period of three weeks or less does not exceed eight per day and forty-eight per week. Article 3 The limit of hours of work prescribed in Article 2 may be exceeded in case of accident, actual or threatened, or in case of urgent work to be done to machinery or plant, or in case of "force majeure", but only so far as may be necessary to avoid serious interference with the ordinary working of the undertaking. Article 4 The limit of hours of work prescribed in Article 2 may also be exceeded in those processes which are required by reason of the nature of the process to be carried on continuously by a succession of shifts, subject to the condition that the working hours shall not exceed fifty-six in the week on the average. Such regulation of the hours of work shall in no case affect any rest days which may be secured by the national law to the workers in such processes in compensation for the weekly rest day. Article 5 1. In exceptional cases where it is recognised that the provisions of Article 2 cannot be applied, but only in such cases, agreements between workers' and employers' organisations concerning the daily limit of work over a longer period of time may be given the force of regulations, if the Government, to which these agreements shall be submitted, so decides. 2. The average number of hours worked per week, over the number of weeks covered by any such agreement, shall not exceed forty-eight. Article 6 1. Regulations made by public authority shall determine for industrial undertakings-- (a) the permanent exceptions that may be allowed in preparatory or complementary work which must necessarily be carried on outside the limits laid down for the general working of an establishment, or for certain classes of workers whose work is essentially intermittent; (b) the temporary exceptions that may be allowed, so that establishments may deal with exceptional cases of pressure of work. 2. These regulations shall be made only after consultation with the organisations of employers and workers concerned, if any such organisations exist. These regulations shall fix the maximum of additional hours in each instance, and the rate of pay for overtime shall not be less than one and one-quarter times the regular rate. Article 7 1. Each Government shall communicate to the International Labour Office-- (a) a list of the processes which are classed as being necessarily continuous in character under Article 4; (b) full information as to working of the agreements mentioned in Article 5; and (c) full information concerning the regulations made under Article 6 and their application. 2. The International Labour Office shall make an annual report thereon to the General Conference of the International Labour Organisation. Article 8 1. In order to facilitate the enforcement of the provisions of this Convention, every employer shall be required-- (a) to notify by means of the posting of notices in conspicuous places in the works or other suitable place, or by such other method as may be approved