Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2008, published 98th ILC session (2009)

Weekly Rest (Commerce and Offices) Convention, 1957 (No. 106) - French Polynesia

Article 7 of the Convention. Special weekly rest schemes. Further to its previous comments, the Committee notes the Government’s explanation about the needs and reasons of general interest that justify the exemptions from the principle of Sunday rest authorized for laboratories of analysis and medical and health biology and for security and surveillance companies. The Committee also notes the information that five collective labour agreements – including those of the commerce, press, catering and automotive sectors – contain an agreement on arrangements for the organization of work including Sunday.

The Committee is bound to recall that the Convention allows for special schemes to be established only when the normal scheme of weekly rest proves impracticable owing to the nature of the work or the service, the size of the population to be served or the number of persons employed. It points out that these conditions are clearly not met in the case of certain very broad permanent exemptions set forth in Decision 2002-101 APF of 1 August 2002, for example the exemption of “enterprises in the commercial sector” in general. The Committee requests the Government to provide information on the manner in which social as well as economic considerations were taken into account in establishing the permanent exemptions mentioned above. It also asks the Government to provide copies of the collective labour agreements mentioned in its report.

Part V of the report form. Practical application. The Committee notes the statistical information sent by the Government showing that in 2006–07, the labour inspectorate issued 196 observations on weekly rest – out of a total of 4,331, i.e. 2.05 per cent of all observations – involving no infringements. The Government adds that in view of the fact that so few observations concern observance of the rules on weekly rest and that there are no reports of contraventions, in French Polynesia there is no serious difficulty in applying weekly rest. The Committee requests the Government to continue to provide general information on the manner in which the Convention is applied in practice, including, for example, extracts of reports by the labour inspection services indicating the number of infringements and the penalties imposed, information on the number of workers covered by the legislation, copies of relevant collective agreements, etc.