CAB129-45 — Page 474

CONFIDENTIAL

C.P. (51) 134

16th May, 1951

Printed for the Cabinet. May 1951

CABINET

361

Page 474

Copy No.31

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR CONFERENCE, GENEVA, JUNE-JULY 1949

CONVENTION (No. 95) CONCERNING THE PROTECTION OF WAGES RECOMMENDATION (No. 85) CONCERNING THE PROTECTION OF WAGES CONVENTION (No. 96) CONCERNING FEE-CHARGING EMPLOYMENT AGENCIES

MEMORANDUM BY THE MINISTER OF LABOUR AND NATIONAL SERVICE

Summary

1. The action to be taken by His Majesty's Government on three of the Conventions and Recommendations adopted by the Thirty-Second Session of the International Labour Conference held at Geneva in 1949 has not yet been deter- mined. These are the Convention (No. 95) and the Recommendation (No. 85) concerning the Protection of Wages and the Convention (No. 96) concerning Fee- Charging Employment Agencies. The texts of these three instruments were published in Cmd. 7852.

2. The present Paper describes the provisions of the Convention and the associated Recommendation concerning the protection of wages. It proposes the ratification of the Convention and, subject to two reservations, the acceptance of the Recommendation. C.P. (51) 133 circulated separately, puts forward proposals for legislation designed to enable the Convention concerning fee-charging employ- ment agencies to be ratified in due course. If both these proposals are approved the Cabinet is invited to agree to the issue of a Command Paper in the terms of the Annex to this Paper.

Convention No. 95

3. The Convention is designed to ensure that workers shall receive the full benefit of their wages and to protect them from certain abuses. It deals with such matters as payment of wages in legal tender; regulation of payment in kind, including the prohibition of payment in the form of liquor of high alcoholic content or of noxious drugs; payment of wages direct to the worker; freedom of the worker to dispose of his wages; protection of the workers from coercion to use works stores for the sale of commodities or other services provided by the undertaking; regula- tion of the conditions under which deductions may be made from wages; regulation of the attachment of wages and their protection in cases where the undertaking becomes bankrupt; regular payment of wages; and prohibition of payment in taverns.

The Convention applies to "all persons to whom wages are paid or payable.'

4. The law and practice of the United Kingdom is in accordance with all the requirements of the Convention in so far as workers covered by the Truck Acts are concerned. These Acts do not, however, cover non-manual and domestic workers and without further legislation certain provisions of the Convention cannot be applied to these classes of workers nor the provisions of the Convention as a whole to all persons to whom wages are paid or payable. There is, however, a provision in Article 2 (2) of the Convention whereby the competent authority may exclude from the application of any or all of the provisions of the Convention any categories of workers to whom their application would be inappropriate and who are employed in non-manual or domestic work. Any such exclusions can

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