E/C.12/GC/23
Covenant and the corollary of the right to work as freely chosen and accepted. Similarly,
trade union rights, freedom of association and the right to strike are crucial means of
introducing, maintaining and defending just and favourable conditions of work.3 In turn,
social security compensates for the lack of work-related income and complements labour
rights.4 The enjoyment of the right to just and favourable conditions of work is a
prerequisite for, and result of, the enjoyment of other Covenant rights, for example, the
right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, by avoiding
occupational accidents and disease, and an adequate standard of living through decent
remuneration.
2.
The importance of the right to just and favourable conditions of work has yet to be
fully realized. Almost 50 years after the adoption of the Covenant, the level of wages in
many parts of the world remains low and the gender pay gap is a persistent and global
problem. ILO estimates that annually some 330 million people are victims of accidents at
work and that there are 2 million work-related fatalities.5 Almost half of all countries still
regulate weekly working hours above the 40-hour work week, with many establishing a
48-hour limit, and some countries have excessively high average working hours. In
addition, workers in special economic, free trade and export processing zones are often
denied the right to just and favourable conditions of work through non-enforcement of
labour legislation.
3.
Discrimination, inequality and a lack of assured rest and leisure conditions plague
many of the world’s workers. Economic, fiscal and political crises have led to austerity
measures that claw back advances. The increasing complexity of work contracts, such as
short-term and zero-hour contracts, and non-standard forms of employment, as well as an
erosion of national and international labour standards, collective bargaining and working
conditions, have resulted in insufficient protection of just and favourable conditions of
work. Even in times of economic growth, many workers do not enjoy such conditions of
work.
4.
The Committee is aware that the concept of work and workers has evolved from the
time of drafting of the Covenant to include new categories, such as self-employed workers,
workers in the informal economy, agricultural workers, refugee workers and unpaid
workers. Following up on general comment No. 18 on the right to work, and benefiting
from its experience in the consideration of reports of States parties, the present general
comment has been drafted by the Committee with the aim of contributing to the full
implementation of article 7 of the Covenant.
3
4
5
2
Convention concerning the Promotional Framework for Occupational Safety and Health, 2006 (No.
187); and Domestic Workers Convention, 2011 (No. 189).
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights general comment No. 18 (2005) on the right to
work, paragraph 2, indicates the interconnection between the right to work in a general sense in article
6 of the Covenant, the recognition of the individual dimension of the right to the enjoyment of just
and favourable conditions of work in article 7 and the collective dimension in article 8.
See Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights general comment No. 19 (2007) on the right
to social security, para. 2.
According to ILO, the overall number of work-related fatal and non-fatal accidents and diseases
globally did not vary significantly during the period 1998 to 2008, although the global figure hides
variations among countries and regions.