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

Weekly Rest (Industry) Convention, 1921 (No. 14) - Malta (Ratification: 1988)

The Committee notes that the Government’s report has not been received. It hopes that a report will be supplied for examination by the Committee at its next session and that it will contain full information on the matters raised in its previous direct request, which read as follows:

Article 2, paragraph 1, of the Convention. While the definition of the weekly day of rest given under section 2(1) of the Employment and Industrial Relations Act (Cap. 452) of 2002 is consistent with article 2, section 3, of the Weekly Days of Rest and Annual Vacation Leave National Standard Order (38/89) of 1989, by explicitly restricting the entitlement to a minimum of one day of rest in every week to full-time workers and thus excluding part-time workers, contravenes the wide scope of the Convention. Furthermore, the Part-Time Employees Regulations, 2002 (Legal Notice 427/2002), with the purpose of removing discrimination against part-time workers, regulate specific issues such as annual or sick leave, income supplements or vocational training, but not weekly rest. Even if in practice the majority of part-time workers enjoy at least one day of weekly rest, this should be made legally binding on employers. The Committee therefore requests the Government to indicate any measures envisaged to ensure that the principle of weekly rest also applies to part-time workers.

Articles 4, 5 and 6. Section 17 of the Employment and Industrial Relations Act further stipulates, for full-time workers only, an additional day of vacation leave during the calendar year for each public holiday, which falls on a weekly rest day or on a Sunday. The Committee asks the Government to indicate the measures taken or envisaged to ensure that also work, including part-time work, carried out on a weekly rest day is compensated, as far as possible, by equivalent periods of rest. Please also communicate a list of the exceptions made under Articles 3 and 4 of the Convention, comprising the indications asked for under Article 6 of the Convention.