Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2006, published 96th ILC session (2007)

Guarding of Machinery Convention, 1963 (No. 119) - Ecuador (Ratification: 1969)

1. The Committee notes the information contained in the Government’s report.

2. Article 2, paragraphs 3 and 4, and Article 4 of the Convention. Dangerous parts of machinery requiring guards and the persons responsible. The Committee notes the study done by the Coordinator of the Occupational Safety and Health Unit, which in turn refers to the provisions of the Occupational Safety and Health Regulations, adopted by Decree No. 2393 of 13 November 1986. In its comments in 1995, the Committee noted that this text establishes liability and certain sanctions for failure to apply the prescriptions set forth in its provisions, but does not specify the persons on whom the obligation to ensure compliance with the provisions of Article 2 of the Convention shall rest. The Committee once again recalls that, in accordance with the provisions of the Convention, measures have to be taken to ensure that the categories of persons referred to in Article 4, namely vendors, persons letting out on hire or transferring machinery in any other manner and exhibitors and, where appropriate, their respective agents, and the manufacturer when she or he sells machinery, lets it out on hire, transfers it in any other manner or exhibits it, are explicitly covered by the provisions of the national legislation establishing the obligation to prohibit by national laws or regulations or to prevent by other equally effective measures, the sale and hire of machinery of which the dangerous parts, specified in paragraphs 3 and 4 of Article 2, are without appropriate guards. The Committee urges the Government to take the necessary measures in the near future to bring the national legislation into conformity with the above provisions of the Convention and requests it to provide information on the progress achieved in this respect.