September 20, 2020 1:29:24 pm
Workers in Punjab (Express photo / Jasbir Malhi)
The government has introduced new versions of three labor codes – Draft Law of the Code of Industrial Relations, 2020, Code of Law of Social Security, 2020 and Law of the Code of Safety, Health and Work Conditions at Work, 2020 – in Lok Sabha on Saturday. While he proposes increasing the scope of social security by including self-employed and interstate migrant workers, he has also proposed measures that will give employers greater flexibility to hire and fire workers without government permission.
What are the key proposals?
In the 2020 Industrial Relations Code bill, 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. They have 300 workers of 100 workers or more at present. measures that are likely to provide more flexibility for employers to hire and fire workers without government permission.
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. This implies that industrial establishments with up to 300 workers will not be required to file a standing order, a measure that experts say would allow companies to introduce arbitrary conditions of service for workers.
The Standing Labor Committee, in its report presented in April, also suggested raising the threshold to 300 workers, noting that some state governments such as Rajasthan had already raised the threshold and that, according to the Ministry of Labor, it has resulted in “an increase in employment and reduction in staff reduction ”. “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 the labor laws by executive means is not desirable and should be avoided to the extent the possible”. had 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.”
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A construction worker talks on the phone as smoke is seen rising from a chimney in an eastern suburb of Mumbai. (Express photo by Karma Sonam Bhutia)
What are the concerns raised by the new labor codes?
Analysts say raising the threshold for standing orders will weaken the labor rights of workers in small establishments with fewer than 300 workers. “The increase in the threshold for standing orders from the current 100 to 300 is unjustified and shows that the government is keen to give enormous flexibility to employers in terms of hiring and firing … firing for alleged misconduct and downsizing Personnel for economic reasons will be entirely possible for all industrial establishments employing less than 300 workers. This is a complete demolition of job security, ”said XLRI professor and labor economist KR Shyam Sundar.
The Labor Relations Code also introduces new conditions for holding a legal strike. The time period for the arbitration procedure has been included in the conditions for workers before initiating a legal strike, as opposed only to the conciliation time at present.
For example, the International Relations Code proposes that no person employed in an industrial establishment shall go on strike without prior notice 60 days in advance and during the processing of the procedure before a National Labor Court or Court and sixty days after the conclusion of the said procedure. Therefore, lengthening the legally allowed time before workers can go on a legal strike makes a legal strike almost impossible.
The IR code has been expanded to cover all industrial establishments during the required notice period and other conditions for a legal strike. The Standing Committee on Labor recommended not to extend the notice period required for strikes beyond public services such as water, electricity, natural gas, telephone and other essential services.
At present, a person employed in a public service cannot go on strike unless they notify a strike within six weeks before going on strike or within fourteen days of giving such notice, which now the Code IR proposes to apply for all industrial sectors. establishments.
Migrants return to Delhi from various parts of Uttar Pradesh in August
What are the other proposals for workers?
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’ salary last withdrawn by the worker immediately before reduction of staff together with the contribution of such other sources. The mention of “other sources” to finance the recycling fund, experts said, is vague.
The other two codes have also proposed changes to expand social security and the inclusion of 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 for 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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