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The Gujarat government, in a landmark legislation — Gujarat Labour Laws (Gujarat Amendment) Bill 2015 — passed by majority in the assembly Wednesday, sought to take greater control over running of industries while trying to minimise disputes between labourers and employees in out-of-court settlement by way of compounding the offence. The bill also sought to change certain basic definitions in the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 and clauses in the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, which allow more policing of the state over industries.
The bill included reforms, like payment of wages by cheque, in establishments that employed over 20 labourers, to give impetus to the Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana. This means that nearly 1.2 crore labourers in Gujarat, who will get wages by cheques, will see them transferred into their bank accounts created under Jan Dhan Yojana.
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This was among the 15 critical amendments as the bill, for the first time, introduced a compounding amount to be paid, for labourers and employers, to settle various offences out of court by involving concerned government authority.
The new Act sought to give powers to the government to prohibit strikes in public utility services in the first instance, by increasing the period of prohibition from the existing six months to one year, “and subsequently by any period not exceeding two years”. On the other hand, it drastically scaled down the period a workman could fight his case against the industry from three to one year. Under the new law, a workman gets only a year to make an application against his dismissal or discharge, raising as “industrial dispute” to the labour court or tribunal” which was so far three years.
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