Preamble
The General Conference of the International Labour Organisation,
Having been convened at Geneva by the Governing Body of the International Labour Office, and having met in its Eleventh Session on 30 May 1928, and
Having decided upon the adoption of certain proposals with regard to minimum wage-fixing machinery, which is the first item on the agenda of the Session, and
Having determined that these proposals should take the form of a Recommendation,
adopts this sixteenth day of June of the year one thousand nine hundred twenty-eight, the following Recommendation, which may be cited as the Minimum Wage-Fixing Machinery Recommendation, 1928, to be submitted to the Members of the International Labour Organisation for consideration with a view to effect being given to it by national legislation or otherwise, in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of the International Labour Organisation:
A
The General Conference of the International Labour Organisation,
Having adopted a Convention concerning the creation of minimum wage-fixing machinery, and
Desiring to supplement this Convention by putting on record for the guidance of the Members certain general principles which, as present practice and experience show, produce the most satisfactory results,
Recommends that each Member should take the following principles and rules into consideration:
I
- (1) In order to ensure that each Member ratifying the Convention is in possession of the information necessary for a decision upon the application of minimum wage-fixing machinery, the wages actually paid and the arrangements, if any, for the regulation of wages should be ascertained in respect of any trade or part of trade to which employers or workers therein request the application of the machinery and furnish information which shows prima facie that no arrangements exist for the effective regulation of wages and that wages are exceptionally low.
- (2) Without prejudice to the discretion left to the Members by the Convention to decide in which trades or parts of trades in their respective countries it is expedient to apply minimum wage-fixing machinery, special regard might usefully be had to trades or parts of trades in which women are ordinarily employed.
II
- (1) The minimum wage-fixing machinery, whatever form it may take (for instance, trade boards for individual trades, general boards for groups of trades, compulsory arbitration tribunals), should operate by way of investigation into the relevant conditions in the trade or part of trade concerned and consultation with the interests primarily and principally affected, that is to say, the employers and workers in the trade or part of trade, whose views on all matters relating to the fixing of the minimum rates of wages should in any case be solicited and be given full and equal consideration.
- (2)
- (a) To secure greater authority for the rates that may be fixed, it should be the general policy that the employers and workers concerned, through representatives equal in number or having equal voting strength, should jointly take a direct part in the deliberations and decisions of the wage-fixing body; in any case, where representation is accorded to one side, the other side should be represented on the same footing. The wage-fixing body should also include one or more independent persons whose votes can ensure effective decisions being reached in the event of the votes of the employers' and workers' representatives being equally divided. Such independent persons should, as far as possible, be selected in agreement with or after consultation with the employers' and workers' representatives on the wage-fixing body.
- (b) In order to ensure that the employers' and workers' representatives shall be persons having the confidence of those whose interests they respectively represent, the employers and workers concerned should be given a voice as far as is practicable in the circumstances in the selection of their representatives, and if any organisations of the employers and workers exist these should in any case be invited to submit names of persons recommended by them for appointment on the wage-fixing body.
- (c) The independent person or persons mentioned in paragraph (a) should be selected from among men or women recognised as possessing the necessary qualifications for their duties and as being dissociated from any interest in the trade or part of trade concerned which might be calculated to put their impartiality in question.
- (d) Wherever a considerable proportion of women are employed, provision should be made as far as possible for the inclusion of women among the workers' representatives and of one or more women among the independent persons mentioned in paragraph (a).
III
For the purpose of determining the minimum rates of wages to be fixed, the wage-fixing body should in any case take account of the necessity of enabling the workers concerned to maintain a suitable standard of living. For this purpose regard should primarily be had to the rates of wages being paid for similar work in trades where the workers are adequately organised and have concluded effective collective agreements, or, if no such standard of reference is available in the circumstances, to the general level of wages prevailing in the country or in the particular locality.
Provision should be made for the review of the minimum rates of wages fixed by the wage-fixing bodies when this is desired by the workers or employers who are members of such bodies.
IV
For effectively protecting the wages of the workers concerned and safeguarding the employers affected against the possibility of unfair competition, the measures to be taken to ensure that wages are not paid at less than the minimum rates which have been fixed should include:
- (a) arrangements for informing the employers and workers of the rates in force;
- (b) official supervision of the rates actually being paid; and
- (c) penalties for infringements of the rates in force and measures for preventing such infringements.
- (1) In order that the workers, who are less likely than the employers to have their own means of acquainting themselves with the wage-fixing body's decisions, may be kept informed of the minimum rates at which they are to be paid, employers might be required to display full statements of the rates in force in readily accessible positions on the premises where the workers are employed, or in the case of home workers on the premises where the work is given out or returned on completion or wages paid.
- (2) A sufficient staff of inspectors should be employed, with powers analogous to those proposed for factory inspectors in the Recommendation concerning the general principles for the organisation of systems of inspection adopted by the General Conference in 1923, to make investigations among the employers and workers concerned with a view to ascertaining whether the minimum rates in force are in fact being paid and taking such steps as may be authorised to deal with infringements of the rates. As a means of enabling the inspectors adequately to carry out these duties, employers might be required to keep complete and authentic records of the wages paid by them, or in the case of home workers to keep a list of the workers with their addresses and provide them with wage books or other similar record containing such particulars as are necessary to ascertain if the wages actually paid correspond to the rates in force.
- (3) In cases where the workers are not in general in a position individually to enforce, by judicial or other legalised proceedings, their rights to recover wages due at the minimum rates in force, such other measures should be provided as may be considered effective for preventing infringements of the rates.
B
The General Conference of the International Labour Organisation thinks it right to call the attention of Governments to the principle affirmed by Article 41 of the Constitution of the International Labour Organisation that men and women should receive equal remuneration for work of equal value. (Note: This Paragraph refers to the Constitution of the International Labour Organisation prior to its amendment in 1946. In the Constitution as amended in 1946 a reference to equal remuneration appears in the Preamble.)
