C47 - Forty-Hour Week Convention, 1935

Preamble

The General Conference of the International Labour Organisation,

Having met at Geneva in its Nineteenth Session on 4 June 1935,

Considering that the question of the reduction of hours of work is the sixth item on the agenda of the Session;

Considering that unemployment has become so widespread and long continued that there are at the present time many millions of workers throughout the world suffering hardship and privation for which they are not themselves responsible and from which they are justly entitled to be relieved;

Considering that it is desirable that workers should as far as practicable be enabled to share in the benefits of the rapid technical progress which is a characteristic of modern industry; and

Considering that in pursuance of the Resolutions adopted by the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Sessions of the International Labour Conference it is necessary that a continuous effort should be made to reduce hours of work in all forms of employment to such extent as is possible;

adopts this twenty-second day of June of the year one thousand nine hundred and thirty-five the following Convention, which may be cited as the Forty-Hour Week Convention, 1935:

Article 1

Each Member of the International Labour Organisation which ratifies this Convention declares its approval of--

• (a) the principle of a forty-hour week applied in such a manner that the standard of living is not reduced in consequence; and
• (b) the taking or facilitating of such measures as may be judged appropriate to secure this end;

and undertakes to apply this principle to classes of employment in accordance with the detailed provision to be prescribed by such separate Conventions as are ratified by that Member.

Article 2

The formal ratifications of this Convention shall be communicated to the Director-General of the International Labour Office for registration.

Article 3

1. 1. This Convention shall be binding only upon those Members of the International Labour Organisation whose ratifications have been registered with the Director-General.
2. 2. It shall come into force twelve months after the date on which the ratifications of two Members have been registered with the Director-General.
3. 3. Thereafter, this Convention shall come into force for any Member twelve months after the date on which its ratifications has been registered.

Article 4

As soon as the ratifications of two Members of the International Labour Organisation have been registered, the Director-General of the International Labour Office shall so notify all the Members of the International Labour Organisation. He shall likewise notify them of the registration of ratifications which may be communicated subsequently by other Members of the Organisation.

Article 5

1. 1. A Member which has ratified this Convention may denounce it after the expiration of ten years from the date on which the Convention first comes into force, by an act communicated to the Director-General of the International Labour Office for registration. Such denunciation shall not take effect until one year after the date on which it is registered.
2. 2. Each Member which has ratified this Convention and which does not, within the year following the expiration of the period of ten years mentioned in the preceding paragraph, exercise the right of denunciation provided for in this Article, will be bound for another period of ten years and, thereafter, may denounce this Convention at the expiration of each period of ten years under the terms provided for in this Article.

Article 6

At such times as it may consider necessary the Governing Body of the International Labour Office shall present to the General Conference a report on the working of this Convention and shall examine the desirability of placing on the agenda of the Conference the question of its revision in whole or in part.

Article 7

1. 1. Should the Conference adopt a new Convention revising this Convention in whole or in part, then, unless the new Convention otherwise provides:
   • (a) the ratification by a Member of the new revising Convention shall ipso jure involve the immediate denunciation of this Convention, notwithstanding the provisions of Article 5 above, if and when the new revising Convention shall have come into force;
   • (b) as from the date when the new revising Convention comes into force this Convention shall cease to be open to ratification by the Members.
2. 2. This Convention shall in any case remain in force in its actual form and content for those Members which have ratified it but have not ratified the revising Convention.

Article 8

The French and English texts of this Convention shall both be authentic.