ILO Conventions Ratified by NZ 2008

No. 14 - Weekly Rest (Industry), 1921

All workers in industrial undertakings shall have a rest period of at least 24 hours in every period of seven days.
Certain exemptions are permitted, with due regard to economic and humanitarian considerations, and after consultation with the responsible employers' and workers' organisations.
When there are exemptions, compensatory rest periods are, as far as possible, to be provided.

Department of Labour

Ministry of Transport

The Health and Safety in Employment Act promotes the prevention of harm in the workplace. While hours of work and weekly rest periods are not explicitly regulated, the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Act 2003 amends the definition of harm to explicitly include physical or mental harm caused by work-related stress. Furthermore, the definition of hazard has been amended to include hazardous behaviour resulting from physical or mental fatigue.
The Minimum Wage Act provides that employment agreements must fix a maximum number of hours to be worked in a week. The fixed numbers must not be more than 40 hours in one week, excluding overtime unless the parties to the agreement agree. Where the number of hours agreed is less than 40 the parties must endeavour to fix the daily working hours so they are not on more than 5 days of the week.
Section 70B, of the Transport Act deals with the hours of work for drivers of heavy motor vehicles and vehicles being used under a transport service licence. A driver of one of these vehicles must have at least 24 consecutive hours off duty during every seven day period.
Please refer to Convention No. 47 for additional details.

This Convention is not applicable to Tokelau.

Ratified - 29 March 1938

Total ratifications - 119