Updated: September 20, 2020 7:46:54 am
The Permanent Labor Commission recommended not to extend the notice period required for strikes beyond public services, as is the case today. (Representative image)
The government has proposed introducing more conditions that restrict workers’ rights to strike, along with an increase in the threshold related to layoffs and downsizing in industrial establishments with 300 workers, from 100 workers or more at present, steps that will likely provide more flexibility. to employers for hiring and firing workers without government permission.
These changes have been proposed in the 2020 Industrial Relations Code bill, introduced at Lok Sabha on Saturday. The Minister of Labor and Employment, Santosh Kumar Gangwar, also introduced two other draft labor code bills: the Social Security Code, 2020, and the Safety, Health and Labor Conditions Code, 2020.
The Labor Relations Code has raised the threshold for the requirement of a standing order (rules of conduct for workers employed in industrial establishments) to more than 300 workers.
Dilute workers’ rights
Workers in small establishments (with up to 300 workers) will see their rights diluted without the protection of trade unions, labor laws. Furthermore, there is a provision that makes a legal strike almost impossible.
This implies that industrial establishments with up to 300 workers will not be required to present a standing order, a measure that experts say will allow companies to introduce arbitrary conditions of service for workers.
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In its report presented in April, the Standing Committee on Labor also suggested raising the threshold to 300 workers, noting that some state governments such as Rajasthan had already raised the threshold and this, according to the Ministry of Labor, had resulted in “an increase in employment and decrease in the reduction of personnel ”.
“The Committee wishes that the threshold be increased accordingly in the Code itself and that the words ‘as notified by the corresponding government’ be deleted because the reform of labor laws through the executive route is undesirable and should be avoided to the extent possible ”. said.
The Labor Relations Code establishes that the permanent order provision will be applicable to “every industrial establishment in which three hundred or more than three hundred workers are employed or have been employed on any day of the previous twelve months.”
XLRI professor and labor economist KR Shyam Sundar said: “The increase in the threshold for standing orders from the current 100 to 300 is unnecessary and shows that the government is very keen on giving an enormous amount of flexibility to employers in terms of Hiring and Firing … Dismissal for alleged misconduct and downsizing for economic reasons will be entirely possible for all industrial establishments employing less than 300 workers. This is a complete demolition of job security. “
The RI Code also proposes that no person employed in an industrial establishment shall go on strike without notice of 60 days and during the processing of the procedure before a National Labor Court or Tribunal, and sixty days after the conclusion of said procedure, with this being last a newly introduced condition for strikes in the latest version of the Code.
The Permanent Labor Commission had recommended that the notice period required for the strike not be extended beyond public services, as is the case today.
Currently, a person employed in a public service cannot go on strike unless they notify a strike within six weeks prior to the strike or within fourteen days after notification, which the International Relations Code proposes now apply for all industrial establishments. .
“The Committee does not see any plausible reason to extend the scope of this provision indiscriminately to all industrial establishments, since the restrictions should not apply to all strikes and demonstrations that are intended to guarantee freedom of labor action. The Committee, therefore, wants the requirement of fourteen days’ notice to go on strike to be applicable only to public services such as water, electricity, natural gas, telephone and other essential services, ”the Standing Committee had said.
The International Relations Code bill has also proposed a worker retraining fund, although contributions to the fund are only detailed from the employer of an industrial establishment amounting to fifteen days of salary drawn by the worker immediately before the reduction. staff together with contribution from such other sources. The mention of other sources to finance the recycling fund, experts said, is vague.
“The vocational rehabilitation fund is arbitrarily framed since the Code has no idea where the funds for it will be obtained in addition to contributions from employers. These are left to the rulemaking processes and bureaucrats. Also, it is unclear who will retrain workers and how adequate funding will be.
In European countries, the employer should implement retraining and other labor market policies in consultation with the unions of laid off workers. The Code lacks clarity on the substantive and procedural aspects of this Fund, which will fade like the National Renewal Fund in the 1990s unless the government has a clear image in mind, ”Sundar said.
The other two codes have also proposed changes to expand social security and include interstate migrant workers in the definition of
workers.
The Social Security Code proposes a National Social Security Board that will recommend to the central government the formulation of adequate schemes for different sections of unorganized workers, concert workers and platform workers. In addition, aggregators employing gig workers must contribute 1-2 percent of their annual billing to social security, and the total contribution will not exceed 5 percent of the amount payable by the aggregator to gig workers. and platforms.
The Code of Safety, Health and Working Conditions has defined interstate migrant workers as workers who have come from only one state and obtained employment in another, earning up to Rs 18,000 per month. The proposed definition makes a distinction from the current definition of contract employment only.
However, the Code has removed the previous provision on temporary accommodation for workers near workplaces. However, she has proposed a travel allowance: a lump sum of fee to be paid by the employer for the round trip of the worker to her place of origin from the place of her employment.
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