LS to debate today 3 bills changing labour scenario

KT NEWS SERVICE. Dated: 9/22/2020 11:30:22 AM

NEW DELHI, Sep 21: Three Bills that are listed for debate and voting on Tuesday that will change the relationship of the labour with the employers across all industries. They are: The Occupational Safety, Health And Working Conditions Code, 2020, the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, and the Code On Social Security, 2020.
Labour Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar introduced them last Saturday with many changes in the similar Bills brought in 2019 that he withdrew. These are to merge 29 central labour laws into four codes, one of which on the wages was passed last year.
The 2019 Bills were sent to Parliament's standing committee and many of its recommendations have been accommodated in the new Bills. The Opposition parties will oppose the Bills since they perceive them as a blow to the rights of the workers. They are particularly opposed to the industrial relations bill that severely restricts the workers' right to strike and makes layoffs and retrenchment easy as a part of the government's poicy of the ease of doing business.
The social security code intends to universalise social security for all labourers, including the informal workers in the unorganised sector, unlike the last year's code. It, however, leaves a lot of space for making the rules through the government notifications.
The industrial relations code gives power of hire and fire to the industrial establishments up to 300 workers to retrench them without the government's nod, as against the present threshold of 100 workers or more. It also slaps many more conditions restricting the rights of workers to go on strike.
Workers in small establishments with up to 300 workers will have their rights waterdown with no protection of the trade unions and the labour laws. The code rather makes a legal strike well-nigh impossible.
In its report submitted in April, the Standing Committee on Labour had also suggested hiking the threshold to 300 workers, noting that some state governments like Rajasthan had already increased the threshold and this, according to the Labour Ministry, had resulted in “an increase in employment and decrease in retrenchment”.
The Code states that the provision for standing order will be applicable to “every industrial establishment wherein three hundred or more than three hundred workers, are employed, or were employed on any day of the preceding twelve months”.
The occupational safety code introduced in July last has been revised after the PMO's objection to a provision to make it mandatory for the employers to provide free-of-cost medical check-up of the employees as it felt that will put expensive burden on the employers and instead the healthcare facilities of the Employees' State Insurance Corporation should suffice.
The code amalgates 13 extant central Acts and empowers the Centre to fix the wage floor for the inter-state migrant workers for ensuring uniformity across the country. The standing committee which examined the code said the state governments be allowed to fix the minimum wage higher than one prescribed by the Centre.
There may be strong opposition to this code that requires it to be applicable to all establishments employing 10 or more workers. The labour ministry, however, justifies it on the ground that it will strike a balance between rights of workers and interests of the small businesses.

 

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