ESCR Document Database

Workmen's Compensation (Occupational Diseases) Convention (Revised), 1934

Date adopted: 21 June 1934

Document Number/Symbol: C42

Organization: International Labour Organisation


C42 Workmen's Compensation (Occupational Diseases) Convention (Revised),
1934

Convention concerning Workmen's Compensation for Occupational Diseases (Revised 1934) (Note: Date of coming into force: 17:06:1936. The
Convention was revised in 1964 by Convention No. 121.)
Description:(Convention)
Convention:C42
Place:Geneva
Session of the Conference:18
Date of adoption:21:06:1934

The General Conference of the International Labour Organisation,

Having been convened at Geneva by the Governing Body of the International Labour Office, and having met
in its Eighteenth Session on 4 June 1934, and

Having decided upon the adoption of certain proposals with regard to the partial revision of the Convention
concerning workmen's compensation for occupational diseases adopted by the Conference at its Seventh
Session, which is the fifth item on the agenda of the Session, and

Considering that these proposals must take the form of an international Convention,

adopts the twenty-first day of June of the year one thousand nine hundred and thirty-four, the following
Convention, which may be cited as the Workmen's Compensation (Occupational Diseases) Convention
(Revised), 1934.

Article 1

1. Each Member of the International Labour Organisation which ratifies this Convention undertakes to provide
that compensation shall be payable to workmen incapacitated by occupational diseases, or, in case of death
from such diseases, to their dependants, in accordance with the general principles of the national legislation
relating to compensation for industrial accidents.

2. The rates of such compensation shall be not less than those prescribed by the national legislation for
injury resulting from industrial accidents. Subject to this provision, each Member, in determining in its
national law or regulations the conditions under which compensation for the said diseases shall be payable,
and in applying to the said diseases its legislation in regard to compensation for industrial accidents, may
make such modifications and adaptations as it thinks expedient.

Article 2

Each Member of the International Labour Organisation which ratifies this Convention undertakes to consider
as occupational diseases those diseases and poisonings produced by the substances set forth in the
Schedule appended hereto, when such diseases or such poisonings affect workers engaged in the trades,
industries or processes placed opposite in the said Schedule, and result from occupation in an undertaking
covered by the said national legislation.

SCHEDULE

List of diseases and toxic List of corresponding trades,

substances. industries or processes.

Poisoning by lead, its alloys or Handling of ore containing lead,

compounds and their sequelae. including fine shot in zinc

factories.

Casting of old zinc and lead in

ingots.

Manufacture of articles made of

cast lead or of lead alloys.

Employment in the polygraphic

industries.

Manufacture of lead compounds.

Manufacture and repair of

electric accumulators.

Preparation and use of enamels

containing lead.

Polishing by means of lead files

or putty powder with a lead

content.

All painting operations involving

the preparation and manipulation

of coating substances, cements or

colouring substances containing

lead pigments.

Poisoning by mercury, its Handling of mercury ore.

amalgams and compounds and

their sequalae.

Manufacture of mercury compounds.

Manufacture of measuring and

laboratory apparatus.

Preparation of raw material for

the hat-making industry.

Hot gilding.

Use of mercury pumps in the

manufacture of incandescent

lamps.

Manufacture of fulminate of

mercury primers.

Anthrax infection.< Work in connection with animals

infected with anthrax.

Handling of animal carcasses or

parts of such carcasses including

hides, hoofs and horns.

Loading and unloading or

transport of merchandise.

Silicosis with or without Industries or processes

pulmonary tuberculosis, recognised by national law or

provided that silicosis is an regulations as involving exposure

essential factor in causing to the risk of silicosis.

the resultant incapacity or

death.

Phosphorus poisoning by Any process involving the

phosphorus or its compounds, production, liberation or

and its sequalae. utilisation of phosphorus or its

compounds.

Arsenic poisoning by arsenic Any process involving the

or its compounds, and its production, liberation or

sequalae. utilisation of phosphorus or its

compounds.

Poisoning by benzene or its Any process involving the

homologues, their nitro- and production, liberation or

amido-derivatives, and its utilisation of benzene or its

sequalae. homologues, or their nitro- and

amido-derivatives.

Poisoning by the halogen Any process involving the

derivatives of hydrocarbons production, liberation or

of the aliphatic series. utilisation of halogen

derivatives of hydrocarbons

of the aliphatic series

designated by national laws

or regulations.

Pathological manifestations due Any process involving exposure

to (a) radium and other to the action of radium,

radio-active substances; radio-active substances, or

(b) X-rays. X-rays.

Primary epitheliomatous cancer Any process involving the

of the skin. handling or use of tar, pitch,

bitumen, mineral oil, paraffin,

or the compounds, products or

residues of these substances.

Article 3

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

Article 4

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. 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. Thereafter, this Convention shall come into force for any Member twelve months after the date on which
its ratification has been registered.

Article 5

As soon as the ratifications of two Members of the International Labour Organisation have been registered
with the International Labour Office, 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 6

1. A Member which has ratified this Convention may denounce it after the expiration of five 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 with the International Labour Office.

2. Each member which has ratified this Convention and which does not, within the year following the
expiration of the period of five years mentioned in the preceding paragraph, exercise the right of denunciation
provided for in this Article, will be bound for another period of five years and, thereafter, may denounce this
Convention at the expiration of each period of five years under the terms provided for in this Article.

Article 7

At the expiration of each period of ten years after the coming into force of this Convention, 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 8

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 6 above, if and when

the new revising Convention shall have come into force;

(b) as from the date when the new revising convention into force, this

Convention shall cease to be open to ratification by the Members.

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 9

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