India is likely to witness one of the largest nationwide strikes tomorrow, with multiple Central Trade Unions calling for a Bharat Bandh against the new labour codes, besides expressing concerns over many issues like privatisation.
Historically, labour rights have been regulated by a flurry of over 20 Central and State laws, covering distinct aspects of the rights and obligations of workers. For the last five years, the Centre has been consolidating all these laws into codes, which are expected to come into force this year. The trade unions opposed this code even in the past, deeming it pro-corporate and a tool to curtail workers’ solidarity and the collective right to agitate for their rights.
Tomorrow’s bandh is the culmination of a long-drawn-out resistance by the trade unions, including the INTUC, AITUC, CITU, HMS and SEWA among others. It is anticipated that over 25 crore workers will participate in it. Many farmers’ unions have also come out in support of tomorrow’s Bharat Bandh.
The Labour Codes largely streamline the different central laws on labour into four distinct thematic areas: Wages, workplace safety, terms of employment and dispute resolution, and social security. While the intent to concatenate all the relevant laws has received support, their legislative reengineering has stirred a fair amount of controversy.
The Code on Wages (2019), which mandates a minimum wage threshold and timely payouts across sectors, lays down a unified definition of “wages” to level the calculations on employee benefits like gratuity, pensions, etc. It also sets out specific conditions for overtime and allowances as wage components.
The Industrial Relations Code (2020) governs rules around trade unions, employee layoffs, minimum work hours and dispute resolution mechanisms. This legislation specifically introduces a category called “fixed-term employee”, who is an employee that will get the benefits that permanent employees are entitled to. It also raises the minimum limit from 100 to 300 workers for a company to seek compulsory government approvals in the case of layoffs or closure.
The Social Security Code (2020) determines the terms and conditions as well as the extent of different central and state-level welfare schemes for workers. This law extends its purview to cover gig workers, platform-based workers and domestic workers. It also mandates the statutory contribution of all platform owners or aggregators to 2 per cent of their annual profits towards the welfare fund of the workers.
The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code (2020) looks into the existing safety gaps and introduces measures to bridge them, like mandatory appointment letters, health checks for hazardous jobs, digitised attendance records, and safety measures for female workers, especially during night shifts.
The labour unions have been protesting against many aspects of these Codes. First, they have expressed their concerns over the “fixed-term employment” concept that would allegedly deprive workers of any job security. The obligation of digitised registration of identity documents like Aadhaar to receive welfare benefits has also been questioned. There is also outrage against the change in the retrenchment limits for layoffs, which further makes workers vulnerable. Moreover, the increased compliance requirements for union registrations have been deemed a step to undermine the power of collective bargaining of the workers.
The current call for Bharat Bandh stems from the government’s unwillingness to respond to the unions’ demands for reform in the proposed laws. Even their 17-point demand charter, which was submitted by the unions to the Labour Ministry earlier this year, has been ignored.
The demands encompassed regularising schemes for all workers, irrespective of their nature of employment; revisiting clauses related to union registrations and reinstating their constitutional right to unionise, strike and negotiate; increasing the minimum wage to index it to inflation; capping working hours to eight hours a day; and overall, strengthening the implementation of measures that safeguard the rights of workers.
The Bharat Bandh organisers highlight that the Indian Labour Conference has not been organised over the past decade, and the existing labour laws landscape is increasingly promoting privatisation without adequately tackling unemployment and related problems.
The projected scale of the Bharat Bandh tomorrow reflects the persisting outrage of the workers’ unions. The government needs to listen to the workers, or else, it might be difficult to reconcile with them in the coming future.
The writer is outreach lead at Nyaaya, an initiative of Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy
