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

Hours of Work (Industry) Convention, 1919 (No. 1) - Libya (Ratification: 1971)

Article 2 of the Convention. Daily and weekly limits of hours of work. The Committee notes that under section 13 of the Labour Relations Act No. 12 of 2010, hours of work may not exceed 48 hours a week and ten hours a day. The Committee is bound to observe, in this regard, that the Convention establishes as a general standard an eight-hour working day and 48-hour working week. These limitations on normal working hours laid down in the Convention should be viewed as a strict maximum limits which are not liable to variation or waiver at the free will of the parties. The Convention allows, of course, for exceptions but only in limited cases and under well-circumscribed conditions, for instance, cases of accident, urgent work or force majeure (Article 3), shift work (Article 2(c)), averaging of hours of work over a period longer than a week (Article 5), intermittent work or exceptional pressure of work (Article 6). Noting that a new draft Labour Code is currently under preparation, the Committee requests the Government to take appropriate steps to ensure that the new draft labour legislation is consistent with the general rule of an eight-hour working day and 48-hour working week, as prescribed by the Convention.

Article 6(2). Maximum limits on additional hours of work. The Committee notes the Government’s statement that section 87 of the Labour Code of 1970 – on which the Committee had been commenting for more than 25 years – was repealed by the Labour Relations Act No. 12 of 2010. It notes, in particular, that under section 16 of the new Labour Relations Act, overtime may be authorized in case of pressure of work provided that overtime hours of work do not exceed three hours a day and the worker is paid overtime pay at no less than 150 per cent of the ordinary wage rate. The Committee observes, in this regard, that even though the new Labour Relations Act provides for overtime pay in accordance with the requirements of Article 6(2) of the Convention, it does not specify the maximum number of additional hours of work that are permissible in the week, month, or in the year and is therefore open to abuse. In this respect, the Committee recalls that although the establishment of specific limits to the total number of additional hours is left to the competent authorities, this does not mean that such authorities have unlimited discretion in this regard. Such limits must be reasonable and they must be prescribed in line with the spirit of the Convention. The Committee recalls that at the time of the adoption of the Convention, the limits considered to be permissible amounted to a total of 150 hours a year in a case of temporary exceptions (that is exceptional cases of pressure of work) and 60 hours a week in the case of permanent exceptions (that is work essentially intermittent or preparatory/complementary work). The Committee accordingly requests the Government to take all necessary action to ensure that the provisions of the new Labour Code on overtime are fully aligned with the requirements of the Convention.