Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 1990, published 77th ILC session (1990)

Hours of Work (Industry) Convention, 1919 (No. 1) - Costa Rica (Ratification: 1982)

The Committee notes the information supplied by the Government in its report for the period ending 30 June 1988. This refers mainly, once again, to the draft reform of the Labour Code, and affirms that the special commission responsible for drawing up the reforms has taken into consideration the questions raised by the Committee in its comments.

In these comments, the Committee noted, in relation to Article 2(b) of the Convention, that section 136 of the present Labour Code permits an agreement to be entered into providing for an ordinary working day not exceeding ten hours, while the Convention only authorises, in certain circumstances, the daily limit to be exceeded by one hour. The Committee once again hopes that the new Labour Code will amend the above section to bring it into conformity with this provision of the Convention. In the case of the exceptions in which the limits set out in Article 2 are not applicable, the Government could avail itself of the possibility of having an arrangement in acordance and under the conditions set out in Article 5.

The Committee once again hopes that the new Code will set out with precision the limits and conditions in which exceptions to the normal working day can be authorised in accordance with Article 6. It recalls that these exceptions must remain within reasonable limits and that lengthening the working day to 12 hours, without any restrictions, would clearly seem to exceed these limits.

The Committee trusts that the draft amendments to the Labour Code will be adopted in the near future and that they will take its comments into account.

The Government is asked to report in detail for the period ending 30 June 1990.