Collected under the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 (hereinafter BOCW Act), the labour cess funds form an important resource for the welfare of building and construction workers, with appropriate state welfare board(s) created under the Act for its proper utilisation.  Section 22 of the BOCW Act provides for the utilisation of the funds to “provide immediate assistance to a beneficiary in case of accident”, pay for group insurance schemes, make payment for pensions to beneficiaries, “sanction loans and advances to a beneficiary for construction of a house”, furnish financial assistance for the education of beneficiaries’ children, meet medical expenses of a beneficiary or their dependant for major ailments, make payment of maternity benefit to the female beneficiaries, and provide better facilities to the workers. Hence, effective utilisation of the financial resources by the welfare boards is essential for the benefits to materialise and trickle down to the beneficiary workers, especially given the monetary contributions of the workers under the BOCW Act.

However, except for Kerala, which has used 100% of its funds collected under the Act, most states/UTs have failed to effectively utilise the available funds for the benefits of the workers. This can be revealed from the data provided by the Ministry of Labour and Employment during the current parliamentary session. In response to the question posed in Rajya Sabha by G.C. Chandrashekhar, INC MP from Karnataka, regarding the utilisation of labour cess funds, the Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Sushri Shobha Karandlaje, provided the details about the utilisation of labour cess funds as of March 31, 2024. Whereas a total of 1,12,331.09 crores have been collected across all the states/UTs till March 31 this year, the spending against the same is merely 64,193.90 crores. Thus, effectively, 48,137.19 crores remained unused by the welfare boards across the states/UTs. Significantly, total number of registered BOCW workers across India stood at 5,65,16,292. It is to be noted that data for the states of West Bengal and Sikkim was available as of January, 2024 and March 31, 2022, respectively.

Notably, Gujarat, which is a leading industrial state, spent a meagre sum of 1012.22 crores against its total collection of 5549.46 crores, with 4537.24 crores remaining in its balance (including bank interests and other receipts). States like Karnataka and Maharashtra had slightly higher relative spending among industrial states, though still worse from the other well performing states/UTs like Puducherry and Kerala. Karnataka spent 7028.05 crores against its total collection of 10874 crores, while Maharashtra spent 12909.16 crores against whopping cess collection of 18579.82 crores. Kerala remained the only state to use all of its funds, with cess collection and expenditure both equalling 3457.32 crores.

The data shared by the Ministry of Labour and Employment can be found below:

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To say it was a hot afternoon in Delhi on May 22, would be an understatement. Yet senior trade unionists braved the heat and gathered near Rajghat, the national memorial of Mahatma Gandhi, which is a symbol of human rights and peace, to protest the draconian new policies that have stripped workers across the country of a number of basic rights. 

The protests were held simultaneously at multiple locations across the country in response to a call oven by ten Central Trade Unions. The Central Trade Unions (CTUs) have also emailed a joint petition listing their urgent demands to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The CTUs have demanded that the government provide urgent relief to the lakhs of stranded workers who are still trying to return to their homes. Horrific scenarios of the stranded migrant workers have been reported from across the country, and it is often citizen groups who have come to help with food and water to the people. The CTUs have demanded that the government ensure that food supplies are made available to everyone and that there is a “universal coverage of ration distribution without conditions,” they have also asked that the government “ensure wages to all of the entire lock down period, cash transfer of Rs.7500/- to all non-income tax paying households.” According to the joint statement, this must include all unorganised labour force, including those unregistered or self employed, and payments must be given for April, May and June, at least.

The CTUs have also raised the issue of DA freeze of central government employees & CPSEs and DR freeze of pensioners, and have asked that this order be withdrawn. They have asked that the government put a  complete halt to any changes/dilutions in the labour laws. They want that the government must strengthen the inter State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Services) Act 1979 “to ensure compulsory registration of migrant workers,” which is crucial as they face an unprecedented crisis having lost jobs, and homes due to the sudden lockdown which has extended for almost two months now.  

The CTU protests in Delhi were held at various places but the most poignant one was the  powerful gathering at Gandhi Samadhi, Rajghat where some of the national leadership of the Central Trade Unions sat on hunger strike, and were subsequently arrested, along with the leaders of Delhi units of CTUs. Those arrested included HMS General Secretary Harbhajan Sidhu, CITU General Secretary Tapan Sen, CITU President Hemlata, AICCTU General Secretary Rajeev Dimri, AITUC National Secretary Vidya Sagar Giri, Vice President of INTUC Ashok Singh, National Secretary of AIUTUC R K Sharma as well as Jawahar Singh of LPF, Lata Ben and Usha from SEWA, Trilok Singh national leader from General Insurance, A R Sindhu and Amitav Guha, secretaries of CITU and Rajender Singh of HMS. 

Other participants and leaders from across India included INTUC President Sanjeeva Reddy (Hyderabad), AITUC General Secretary Amarjeet Kaur (Ludhiana), General Secretary LPF Shanmugam (Tamil Nadu), TUCC national leaders G Shivshankar (Karnataka), Devrajan (Kerala), General Secretary, SEWA, Ms Manali (Gujarat). Some leaders were even arrested at Siliguri in West Bengal.

According to information shared by CTU, trade union leaders were arrested the previous day, in some areas including in Noida in Uttar Pradesh, in an attempt to end the labour protest before it even begins. However, workers did join the peaceful protest on May 22.

The unions have demanded that the government “halt the  policy of wholesale privatization of PSUs and government departments through multi-pronged routes like corporatization, outsourcing, PPP,  and liberalized FDI.”  These plans had been a part of the many announcements made by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her speeches from May 13 to May 17. 

As has been reported for days now, it is during this prolonged National lockdown period, that crucial labour rights have been attacked. In Uttar Pradesh, the government brought an ordinance titled “Uttar Pradesh Temporary Exemption for certain labour laws ordinance 2020” under which 38 laws are made defunct for almost three years. Those laws made defunct include Trade Union Act, Industrial Disputes Act, Act on Occupational Safety and Health, Contract Labour Act, Interstate Migrant Labour Act, Equal Remuneration Act, Maternity Benefit Act etc.

Madhya Pradesh Government too brought drastic changes in Factories Act, Contract Act and Industrial Dispute Act in a manner that employers can now hire and fire the labour at will; right to  dispute raising and grievance redressal is now banned and contractors will not have to obtain a license to supply a labour batch of upto 49 persons. According to trade unions this allows the contractors to function practically “without any regulation and control; inspection will be virtually withdrawn and the entire enforcement machinery is frozen.” This endangers the basic rights of the workers on wages, compensation, safety. “Not only that, the employers were also exempted from payment of Rs 80/- per labourer to Madhya Pradesh Labour Welfare Board. The Shop and Establishment Act is amended to let the shops function from 6 am to 12 at night, which means 18 hours at a go by the MP government,” the unions stated. 

The Gujarat government has also increased working  hours from 8 to 12 hours and may also suspend several laws for the next couple of years, fear the Unions.  

Civil society leaders have also expressed their solidarity with the central trade unions. They said that the “anti-labour virus has spread all over, as shown by the fact that Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana, Odisha and Assam have made changes in the labour laws.”

The civil society leadership also expressed concern that the recent changes in labour laws also takes away the right of workers to “form trade unions, to be associated with them and to represent their cases collectively with the employer or with the governments.”

Civil Society and People’s Movements in India have stated, “We are extremely concerned that these changes are being made while the whole country is going through the impact of COVID-19 pandemic, which is a health emergency situation, which has hugely affected the income of the lives and livelihoods for millions of workers in India.” They have reiterated that “labour rights are embodiments of civil and democratic rights as guaranteed in the Constitution of India and are within India’s commitment to international human rights covenants.”

The CTUs have stated that they will also send a joint representation to ILO about the “violations being committed by Govt of India in regard to all the international commitments on labour standards and human rights.” 

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A Sabrangindia Analysis

There is no denying that the worst hit section or class of people ever since the nationwide lockdown was haphazardly and recklessly declared, have been our “workers”. This is a rather generic term that stretches across sectors; it covers the vast numbers of those who work in our unorganised sector, migrant labourers and landless labourers. Right from a mason, carpenter, kedia, plumber, zardozi embroidery worker, to one who drives an autorickshaw and one who sells vegetables for a living. Basically, any such person who lives a hand-to-mouth existence and is at risk of losing even a day’s earnings or wages leading to their entire family becoming unable to afford a good meal the next day.

Plight of workers during COVID19

Since March 24, when the first lockdown was announced and all transport came to a standstill and people were locked up in their homes, these very workers were yearning to go back home in the absence of any means of their wages, unable to buy food or pay rent to their landlords. These ‘guest workers’, the Kerala lingo for migrant workers, were then to be provided for by the host state as it was found unfeasible to send them back to their home states. Most of the host states failed to deliver even though citizens’ initiatives bravely and stoically stepped in.

Straining at the leash -stressed out in cities like Mumbai and in Gujarat where the COVID virus spread was not being contained – crowds gathered, in Mumbai, in Surat and few other cities, desperate to reach home. What seemed unfeasible then was made feasible just a few days later when special trains were arranged for these workers to go back to their home states, to enable them to at least live a life of dignity, in their homes in their village rather than living off the ration and essentials given by some well meaning citizens groups and, in some cases, the government.

Most host states, that benefit from the hard work and labour of these “guest” or “migrant” workers, have just not been able to instil a sense of trust, leave alone give these workers what they demanded in this moment of pandemic driven crisis: some transparency and communication forget a life of dignity which would let them earn through their hardwork and provide for their families.

The massive human tragedy as lakhs of migrant workers found themselves stranded during the lockdown, without any means of getting food or work.  Much of this could have been averted had the laws on migrant workers been properly implemented, and all of them been duly documented. Many of these workers have not been paid for months. Again, had the laws relating to the timely payment of wages been enforced, many of these workers would not have been forced to take desperate measures like walking thousands of kilometres back to their homes.

Modi 2.0 Govt’s attack on Dignity of Labour

The COVID 19 pandemic brought out the worst among those in power and even the urban elite. Staring at starvation, the narrative of this section of Indians now dots micro-blogging sites and the discussion shows on some television channels. India reels under a particularly non-transparent and authoritarian government. Unmoved by the “plight” and “narrative” of the “nowhere Indian” our guest or migrant workers, the Modi 2.0 government and several states owing allegiance to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and even a couple with Congress governments have seized the opportunity to bring in ordinances to curb the recognised and hard-earned rights of the workers in the organised sector as also the unorganised sector.

It has been reported that states like Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat are paving a way to dilute the rights of these workers, in short aiming for diluting labour laws. The ordinances cleared by Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat cabinets, which would indiscriminately suspend all labour laws except a few basic ones, for close to three years. Notifications by the governments of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana have also suspended crucial portions of their labour legislations. These moves could force a large proportion of our population to inhuman servitude and destitution.

 Uttar Pradesh, through an ordinance called ‘Uttar Pradesh Temporary Exemption from Certain Labour Laws Ordinance, 2020’, has suspended 35 out of 38 labour laws for a period of 3 years. The state justified this step on the grounds that economic activities need to get back on track and industrial investments opportunities need to be created. The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) called the move barbarous and termed it as encouraging slavery of workers.

On May 7, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced that his government will exempt new manufacturing units from almost all provisions they have to follow and comply with under the Factories Act, 1948 for nearly three years.

The first step towards dilution of these labour rights were taken by states when working hours of workers was increased from 8 hrs to 12 hrs, without lawful compensation. This paved the way for the suspension of labour laws, as dared by Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. There are reports that UP has gone back on this decision, however not the overall Ordinance.

Why do we need Labour Rights?

The swiftness with which many states in the nation are dismantling the protection afforded to workers under various labour laws is worrying: These laws provide many of the basic guarantees to workers; ensuring that employees get paid decent wages on time, have reasonable working hours, and are not subject to discrimination. They require employers to provide basic necessities such as drinking water and clean toilets to workers and protect them from accidents and occupational hazards and diseases. Labour laws are essential for ensuring fundamental rights for our workers – rights which are guaranteed by the Indian Constitution to all Indian citizens, at all times. The withdrawal of these protections from the working population in an effort to entice new businesses, is an unconstitutional, immoral and unethical attempt to revive an economy at the expense of its weakest citizens. 

Rights Diluted or Snatched away?

Labour Laws ensure basic living conditions for a large section of the population

Remuneration for Work

Employers are mandated by law to pay workers no less than the minimum wages in a timely manner, and also supplement the incomes of their low wage employees with yearly bonuses drawn from their profits. In addition, laws on gratuity ensure that at the end of employment, due to retirement, death or disability, the employees or their families are compensated for the length of their service. Workers covered by Employee State Insurance (ESIC) are entitled to half of their monthly wages as unemployment benefits for a maximum of two years, and the Employees Provident Fund (EPIF) allows them access to a small fund at retirement, or during an emergency. 

Poor implementation of the Law: In actuality only a small proportion of all workers are enrolled in ESI and EPF, even in industry notified under EPF. For example, in the brick-kiln industry, it is estimated that anywhere from 5-8 million workers do not get this benefit. Similar is the situation in relation to Gratuity and Bonus. The demand should be to make these protections universal; instead, these provisions are being suspended even for existing workers.

Most of the currently proposed labour law amendments guarantee only the minimum wages and have suspended all other benefits.  Congress-ruled Punjab has also rolled back its latest increase in the minimum wage and other states may soon follow.  UP and Gujarat propose to suspend gratuity, bonus, provident fund, and all other benefits, which are crucial to sustain the workers at this time.  

2.      Working Hours  

Factories Act mandates that working hours should be limited to 9 hours in one day, with a maximum of 48 hours per week.  Any additional hours of work have to be compensated as overtime wages at twice the ordinary rate. A large number of states including Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh have extended the workday to 12 hours per day, for the next 3 months, with no increase in the number of rest intervals. A majority of these states have also extended the workweek from 48 hours to a gruelling 72 hours. Worse still, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh have exempted their industries from having to pay overtime wages for these extended work hours.  

Extension of working hours also goes against the stated aim of these labour law amendments to increase overall employment, because they effectively incentivize the employers to employ fewer workers than required, and compel them to work for longer hours. 

Limiting the working hours to 8-hours a day and 48 hours in a week originated during the Industrial Revolution in order to protect the workers’ health and safety by providing them with adequate amounts of rest and recuperation. Considering that the right to shorter working hours was the subject of the very first Convention of ILO ‘International Labour Standard (C001)’ adopted by the ILO and ratified by India, these steps by the Modi 2.0 government and several state governments is turning the clock back more than 100  years of workers’ struggle.

It is especially against the very requirement of health and immunity following Covid-19; this is because simultaneous with the 12-hour workday, the rest time for the worker will now be available not after the first 4 hours, but after 6 hours of continuous work. This will have an adverse impact on the health and emotional state of the workers. Also given the high increasing rate of unemployment, this will further limit the employment opportunities. The hours work should be reduced to six.  

3.   Health, Safety and Welfare of workers

Factories Act, Mines Act and Dockworkers Act are some of the labour laws that enjoin employers to protect the health and well-being of their workers. These laws provide for clean, ventilated and adequately lit working spaces with drinking water, and toilets. An employer is also expected to provide first aid facilities, sitting spaces and creches. These laws also mandate inspections for safety and health, safe disposal of hazardous materials, notifications of industrial accidents and occupational diseases. 

As a pandemic rages in our country, and with a living memory of the Bhopal Gas Disaster and the recent Styrene gas leak causing the death of 11 people and serious injuries to over 200 people in the LG Polymers India plant in Vishakapatnam on May 7, 2020, it is obvious that these measures not only secure the health and safety of industrial workers, but also of entire communities.   

4.   Grievance redressal machinery and the Right to Collective Bargaining 

The central Industrial Disputes Act and the state Industrial Relations Acts primarily protect workers from uncompensated lay-offs and retrenchments, unreasonable changes in their working conditions, unfair labour practices etc. They allow for a system of labour courts, industrial tribunals and arbitration boards where the workers can raise an industrial dispute relating to wages, working hours, conditions of work etc, and get their grievances redressed.  The Trade Unions Act recognizes associations of workers to act as their representatives and enter into collective agreements with the employers. 

The Tripartite arrangement ensured after years of struggle among the workers is aimed at ensuring a more equal bargaining power with the worker, who, without the assurance of some adjudication is left to the mercies of rapacious employers and unregulated work conditions.

This machinery is essential for ironing out the tensions between the labour and the management, without having to take recourse to the lengthy and expensive litigation, or acrimonious strikes and lock-outs.  Highest level labour related bodies at the National (Indian Labour Conference) and International (International Labour Organisation) level are tripartite in nature. To compromise on this arrangement is to hit at the very structure of equitability and accountability, both must for democratic governance. 

5.   Worker Welfare   

In addition to these, there are many other labour laws which afforded some protection to the most vulnerable category of workers, such as pregnant women, migrant workers, contract workers, manual scavengers, and those working in the beedi industry, in mines and in the unorganized sector, who are now also left open to exploitation by industry owners. 

Diluting labour laws will not attract additional investment

The justification given by various governments that existing labour laws are a deterrence to investment by industry, and by extension, to the prosperity of the state, needs to be examined more critically. The notion that stringent labour laws are the primary impediments to investments in states is highly debatable – manufacturing industries depend on a complex set of factors such as reliability of infrastructure, access to credit, availability of skilled workers, good governance and freedom from corruption.  

Several studies have shown that strong labour market institutions and social welfare legislation are necessary to reduce inequalities and encourage inclusive growth[1], and that high levels of inequality can retard growth in developing economies[2].  Even the UN Trade and Development Report, 2019, warns governments against “promoting cuts to labour costs” as their “adjustment strategy of choice” when faced with economic downturns. Instead, the report encourages governments to adopt progressive fiscal arrangements, and expanded social insurance, among other measures for achieving Sustainable Development Goals.[3]  An increase in the average wage of the worker will drive domestic demand, fueling growth in the economy. 

Suspension of Labour Laws is Unconstitutional & violates International Covenants

The new industry regime ushered in by these changes, where employers can pay rock-bottom wages, hire and fire workers at will, coerce them into working long hours each day, and prevent them from unionizing, goes against the very grain of our constitution, and is also in violation of many international conventions. Such precarious working conditions are clearly violative of Article 21, the fundamental right of workers to live with dignity, as held by J Bhagwati in the `People’s Union for Democratic Rights v. Union of India’ (1982)[4] case.

The Supreme Court has held that Article 21 also encompasses the “protection of health and strength of workers and just and humane conditions of work.[5]” 

The rights of workers to non-discrimination, a living wage, safe and humane working conditions, and a decent standard of life and full enjoyment of leisure and social and cultural opportunities, is also enshrined in our Constitution through Directive Principles of State Policy[6].  

The right to form trade unions and engage in collective bargaining is protected by Article 19(1)(c), which guarantees all citizens the right to form associations or unions for a lawful purpose.  It is also a fundamental human right recognized by the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, 1948, enabling the effective participation of workers in economic and social policy. 

History of labour laws in India

Pre-independence

The history of labour rights dates back to colonised India. The concept of some sort of labour welfare in colonial India was introduced by the British government through the Apprentices Act of 1850 and further the Fatal Accidents Act, 1853 which sought to provide compensation to families of workmen who lost their lives due to an actionable wrong. The law which actually aimed at improvement in labour conditions was the Factories Act of 1881 and was first such law which prohibited employment of children below 7 years of age and mandatory 4 days leave in a month, among other things.

After the International labour Organization (ILO) was founded in 1919, a new law was passed superseding the previous law and was called the Factories Act, 1922 which limited 11 hours of work per day and cap of 60 hours work through the week.

The earliest Indian statute to regulate the relationship between employer and his workmen was the Trade Dispute Act, 1929 (Act 7 of 1929). Provisions were made in this Act for restraining the rights of strike and lock out but no machinery was provided to take care of disputes.[1]

Post-independence

After independence a committee was set up called the Committee on Labour Welfare which gave definition to the term labour welfare as follows:

“labour welfare includes such services, as facilities and amenities as adequate canteen, rest and recreational facilities, sanitary and medical facilities, arrangement for travel to and from work and for the accommodation of the workers employed at a distance from their homes and such other services amenities and facilities as contribute to improve the condition under which workers are employed.”

Independent India saw several laws related to labour rights. Labour is a concurrent subject which mean both, the Centre as well as the states can make laws on it. There have been several labour laws, for Employees’ insurance, for mine workers, for cine workers, dock workers, for equal remuneration, for maternity benefit, for gratuity, for resolving industrial disputes, for security of unorganized labour, for plantation labour, for journalists and so on. There are more than 50 such laws enacted by the Centre alone and then each state has its own set of labour laws.

The significance of labour laws relates to the establishment of a better working culture among the employees and also makes sure that the interests of all three parties i.e the employees, the employers and the trade unions are protected.

Labour rights in courts

The principle of equal pay for equal work for upheld by the Supreme Court in 1982 in Randhir Singh vs. UOI (AIR 1982 SC 879). It held that even though this principle is not expressly mentioned in the Indian Constitution as a fundamental right, it is certainly a “constitutional goal” and hence can be enforced in cases of unequal scales of pay based on irrational classification.

Right to livelihood is organically a part of labour rights. In Olga Tellis vs. Bombay Municipal Corporation, known as the ‘pavement dwellers case’, a five-judge bench of the apex court had ruled that right to livelihood is include in right to life guaranteed by Article 21 of Indian Constitution.

“If right to livelihood is not treated as a part of the constitutional right to life, the easiest ways of depriving a person of his right to life would be to deprive him of his means of livelihood. In view of the fact that Articles 39(a) and 41 require the state to secure to the citizen an adequate means of livelihood and the right to work, it would be sheer pedantry to exclude the right to livelihood from the content of the right to life.”

In PUDR vs. UOI (1982 AIR 1473)the Supreme Court held that the right against forced labour included the right to a minimum wage. It noted that often, migrant and contract labourers had “no choice but to accept any work that came [their] way, even if the remuneration offered… is less than the minimum wage”. Consequently, the Court held that “the compulsion of economic circumstance which leaves no choice of alternatives to a person in want and compels him to provide labour or service” was no less a form of forced labour than any other, and its remedy lay in a constitutional guarantee of the minimum wage.

To cater specifically to labour issues, there are labour courts, Industrial Tribunals and National Industrial Tribunal set up under the Industrial Disputes Act. A labour court is at par with a district court.

Labour and Constitution

Labour is a concurrent subject, as mentioned before and labour as a subject is dealt with under Chapter III which is fundamental rights as well as chapter IV which is Directive Principles of State Policy.

Fundamental Rights related to labour:

Art. 16: Equality of opportunity in matters of public employment:

This Article provides that no discrimination be made during employment and also enables governments to pass laws for reservation of appointments for backward class of citizens

Art 19(1)(c): Right to form associations or unions-

This Article gives labour the right to form unions. In India Trade Unions are governed and registered under specific law called the Trade unions Act. Trade unions play a significant role in asserting labour rights which have been provided for in the Constitution as well as under various labour laws. They help in negotiating better working conditions for workers and also help in settlement of disputes between employer and workers.

Art. 23: Prohibition of traffic in human beings and forced labour

This Article provides that any kind of forced labour is punishable. This seems relevant in today’s time when Karnataka government was accused of indulging in forced labour when it forced migrant workers to stay back in the state in order to resume construction activities. This decision was revoked within a few days after it met with a lot of criticism.

Art. 24: Prohibition of employment of children in factories

This Article prohibits child labour in any factory or mine or in any other hazardous employment. This further paved way for the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 which when amended in 2016 prohibited the employment of children (below 14 years) in all kinds of occupation and of adolescents (between 14 to 18 years of age) in hazardous occupations.

Directive Principles of State Policy

Article 39 requires the state to direct its policy towards securing:

a. that the citizens, men and women equally, have the right to an adequate means to livelihood;

…d. that there is equal pay for equal work for both men and women

…e. that the health and strength of workers, men and women, and the tender age of children are not abused and that citizens are not forced by economic necessity to enter avocations unsuited to their age or strength

Article 41

 Right to work, to education and to public assistance in certain cases The State shall, within the limits of its economic capacity and development, make effective provision for securing the right to work, to education and to public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement, and in other cases of undeserved want.

Article 42

Provision for just and humane conditions of work and maternity relief. The State shall make provision for securing just and humane conditions of work and for maternity relief

Article 43

Living wage, etc, for workers The State shall endeavour to secure, by suitable legislation or economic organisation or in any other way, to all workers, agricultural, industrial or otherwise, work, a living wage, conditions of work ensuring a decent standard of life and full enjoyment of leisure and social and cultural opportunities and, in particular, the State shall endeavour to promote cottage industries on an individual or co operative basis in rural areas.

Article 43A

The State shall take steps, by suitable legislation or in any other way, to secure the participation of workers in the management of undertakings, establishments or other organisations engaged in any industry.

Labour laws still need to evolve

The current health crisis or the COVID19 pandemic has brought to fore the utter disregard for the unorganised sector in India. No strict penalties or regulations were formulated for the financial and social security of these unorganised sector workers. Although there exists a law for their social security called Unorganized Sector Social Securities Act, 2008, it does not clearly define what social security means neither is it clear what kind of establishments under unorganized sector can become beneficiaries. Hence, clearly there is lacunae in the law.

Another problem, which many social security laws in India also face, is effective implementation which ultimately means the real beneficiaries largely end up deprived of their rights. If labour laws are implemented in their truest sense, India can achieve its projected goals of labour empowerment which was envisioned by the framers of our Constitution.

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The post Labour laws and rights in peril in India? appeared first on SabrangIndia.

The Statement of Objects and Reasons of the two bills relies on the recommendations submitted by the 2^nd National Commission of Labour in 2002. These were rejected by all trade unions and not implemented. The language of government gives the impression that it is statutorily bound by these recommendations and worse so, claims that the bills have emerged through a tripartite process!

The BJP government own description of the bills is evidence enough that it favours employers. The bills convey the BJP’s understanding that ‘facilitation for ease of compliance of labour laws will promote setting up of more enterprises; this catalysing the creation of employment opportunities.’ Over the last five years as the country rose on the global index of ‘ease of doing business’, unemployment rose to highest level in forty-five years.

The bills presuppose that the ‘use of technology in its (the laws’) enforcement’ will reduce violations. In reality, the bills use of technology is only to transform the entire system of labour inspection. No longer to be based on checks and complaints, instead workplaces will be inspected based on ‘random’ computerised selections with some even inspected online or over the phone. Employers can also be informed beforehand. In addition, employers are no longer bound by law to cooperate with inspectors. The newly designated ‘Inspectors-cum-Facilitators’, under the bill, are meant to assist employers in ‘complying’ with the law and can even forgive them for violations. Except ‘technology’, there is actually nothing in the law to ensure better compliance and implementation.

The failure to implement labour law over the last twenty-five years has been the most significant route through which workers’ rights have been undermined. All trade unions have long been demanding that non-payment of minimum wages and such other violations of basic rights be made cognizable offenses. Rather than responding to this, the bills actually remove deterrents including the attachment of property in cases on non-compliance.

The stated effort in advancing the Labour Codes is to ‘simplify and rationalise’ the law with the objective of removing the ‘multiplicity of definitions and authorities’. Both codes fall well short of this claim – in fact now there is a definition of employee and worker that run into each other and the creation of an additional authority – the Appellate Authority’ – between the conciliation process and the courts. Workers as a result will have to only wait longer for justice.

Both bills also clearly define the responsibility of the labour contractor as final. This is an important departure which takes away the key responsibility of the principal employer for payment of wages and other benefits including bonus; as also the criminal liability for workplace accidents and deaths. The introduction of combined labour contract licences for all tasks in an establishment removes the possibility of identifying from the contract licence, a perennial task from a non-perennial task.  It takes away the core principle of the Contract Labour Act and will provide employers a legal cover to hire contract workers in perennial and core tasks.

These two bills and all the others the BJP government is seeking to legislate define the BJP government’s understanding of the rights it (government) must enjoy over a democratically elected parliament. The BJP government is seeking to arrogate to the Executive, the rights and powers that rest with Parliament especially when it comes to those that concern workers and the poor. Our tax and commercial laws clearly define how the profit of an enterprise are of great concern to the BJP government. The same concern does not apply to workers. Hence there is one law for the rich and for big companies and another for ordinary citizens. In a violation of article 14 of the constitution – the fundamental right to equality under law – the BJP government is seeking to grant the Executive the power to define how a company’s profits are to be computed. This will affect every worker in the country not only in terms of bonus payments but also, at the lowest end, in minimum wages as employers will make claims on the ability to pay owing to low profitability.

Less than two weeks ago the BJP government gave us a fine display of the arbitrariness of the Executive when it announced a Rs. 2 increase in the National Floor-level Minimum Wage from Rs. 176 to Rs. 178 per day. Without doubt it was done to assuage employers that BJP government was seeking to push through laws that were in the interest of employers and no one else. What it also did, for all to see, is convey that the BJP government does not believe that it owes anyone an explanation as to how it arrived at a 1.13 per cent increase in the minimum wage from one year to the next. It must be their ‘technology’ that did it.

This effort to legislate the Labour Codes comes at the end of five years during which the BJP government disrupted the tripartite system and virtually disbanded the Indian Labour Conference. Addressing BJP MPs for the first time after the general election Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the task of government must now be to help ‘ease of living’. A Rs. 2 increase in the daily wage of a family of four will certainly ease the living of the few over the many.

Going by tenor of Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar in the Lok Sabha today it is clear that the government is determined to push this legislation through within the next few days without reference to parliament’s Standing Committee for Labour. This may well happen.
Our task however remains to resist this attack and advance the working class struggle in all ways that are possible. And this we will do.

Gautam Mody
General Secretary

Courtesy: http://ntui.in/2019/07/23/labour-laws-for-companies-not-workers/

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Let the state provide incomes and social protection, freeing up capital to exploit labour at will says working draft of new flagship report.

 
The recently released ‘working draft ’ of the World Bank’s flagship World Development Report (WDR) for this year neatly summarises what the world capitalist class is thinking – or should be thinking – about labour. Calling for a new social contract, the draft suggests that while income and social insurance can be provided by the state employers should be freed of this onus and allowed to abandon such ‘outdated’ concepts as minimum wage, long term job security, protection from hire and fire, severance pay, doing away with ‘colonial era’ labour laws, and linking of wages to productivity. These suggestions are under a section sub titled ‘Protecting Workers’, in chapter six.

Replacing these fetters on the technology driven, flexible work based new economy will be some form of Universal Basic Income (UBI) and social insurance (not social security). One important factor that will help this system to work better will be detailed data bases used to identify targeted populations for, say, electronic cash transfers.

Are you getting an eerie sense of déjà vu? Haven’t we Indians heard some of these things before? Yes we have. Some of these elements were initiated by the previous Congress led government, others have been energetically initiated by the current Modi govt.

Aadhaar is a massive databases of people, linked to electronic cash transfers. It was a brainchild of the UPA burnished and expanded by Modi sarkar. UPA tinkered around with labour law reforms but then Modi has moved in with a whole new set of Labour Codes (still pending clearance), fixed term employment with in-built hire-and-fire and replacement of social security benefits with insurance based systems. State govts. (Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Jharkhand) run by Modi’s party have gone further amending several labour laws to ease firing of workers.

Although India still officially subscribes to the minimum wage concept – and has laws to back it up – in practice, it is all but abandoned. Trade unions have been fighting for years to increase minimum wages to Rs.18,000 but the govt. is not even willing to talk. The machinery to implement minimum wage and other laws has been gutted country-wide leaving wage fixation to the complete mercy of employers. Working hours and other service conditions too are no longer governed by any laws in practice though on paper such laws exist.

So there it is: the World Bank is nudging govts. of the whole world, especially from developing countries, to move forward in this direction and drawing upon experiences – quoted extensively in the draft report – from countries like India and scores of others for validating its assumptions. On the flip side, Modi’s advisors in the labour and finance ministries will heartily welcome the new guidelines from Washington and hold them up to justify their policies.

The World Bank’s draft report suggests that the state can think about providing a Universal Basic Income to all persons, or preferably in a tapering mode so that the poorer get more and the richer less (or none). It gives patchy data to indicate that such a provision could entail a cost of anything between 2-14% of the country’s GDP. Who will give this UIB? Obviously, the state, from its tax kitty.

So, while the state gives income sustenance to people, and provides social insurance (maybe subsidized for the poor), the need of people to get benefits from labour laws goes down, argues the Report. Why have minimum wage when UIB is there? Why have job security when social insurance is there?

Note that financial liability of UIB and social insurance will be borne by the state while benefits of destroying labour protection laws will go to the capitalist class. This in essence is the new formula of neo-liberalism that the World Bank is trotting out.

The final report will come out this autumn. Meanwhile, capitalists and govts. world over can chew on this delicious concoction served up by their favourite chef, the World Bank.

Courtesy: Newsclick.in

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Manipur, India. Jake Guild/Flickr. CC (by)

We, the undersigned activists and academics, work on various forms of extreme exploitation in India. Endorsing the commitment of the Government of India to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), especially SDG 8 on Decent Work and SDG 8.7 on Forced Labour, Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, the undersigned hereby submit the following 25 points for consideration.

~ 1 ~
We believe that the problems of forced labour, modern slavery and human trafficking which are sought to be addressed by SDG 8.7 must be tackled comprehensively. In other words, SDG 8 in general, and SDG 8.7 in particular, can only be achieved by interlinking with efforts to achieve other SDGs, especially SDGs 1 (against poverty), 2 (against hunger), 3 (health and well-being), 5 (gender equality), 10 (reduced inequalities) and 16 (peace, justice and strong institutions). Further, a multi-pronged strategy that responds to the needs of all affected constituencies, including bonded labourers, contract workers, domestic workers, intra and inter-state as well as international migrant workers, and sex workers is necessary in order to achieve SDG 8.7.

~ 2 ~
We believe that dominant international discourses on modern slavery do not adequately reflect the extreme exploitation and precarious nature of employment in India today. Instead, we believe that an undue emphasis on sensationalist accounts of modern slavery deny the widespread prevalence of economic exploitation – even now based on social customs, cultural traditions and hereditary obligations – and obfuscate the continuum between extreme and ‘everyday’ forms of such exploitation.

~ 3 ~
We believe that the criminal law, which advocates very stringent punishment of offenders, is neither the best way to address exploitation nor to achieve SDG 8.7 as it often ends up hurting the very poor and vulnerable sections of society that it is meant to protect. Correspondingly, proposing a special anti-trafficking law that addresses trafficking as defined in Section 370 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 is not sufficient.

Instead, the problem of trafficking can only be addressed through a multi-faceted legal and economic strategy that strengthens the implementation of labour protections such as those guaranteed by the constitution, and laws such as the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, and the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979.

Such a strategy would necessarily move the focus away from criminalisation and toward decent work. It would necessarily mandate a universal social protection floor, as well as the implementation of anti-discrimination provisions related to caste, gender, age, income level, ethnicity, disability, education and origin. It would also entail the reform of relevant laws including the Immoral Traffic Prevention Act, 1986.

~ 4 ~
The most effective and durable way to prevent all forms of extreme exploitation lies in the self-organisation of workers.

The most effective and durable way to prevent all forms of extreme exploitation lies in the self-organisation of workers and in their efforts at collective bargaining, especially through trade unions and workers’ collectives. Accordingly, we call on the government and all political actors to affirm and ensure freedom of association, safe self-organisation, self-determination and collective bargaining for workers including by ratifying the Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention, 1948 (No. 87) and the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention, 1949 (No. 98).

~ 5 ~
A more robust labour governance system in the form of increased inspections and better resources for the labour inspectorate is essential for the realisation of SDG 8.7. The present labour administrative structure in India, by and large, in practice, is restricted to the organised sector. There should be a dedicated labour administrative structure only to monitor the implementation of minimum wages and other labour laws in the unorganised sector.

~ 6 ~
The government must reverse the erosion of workers’ rights and ensure the enforcement of labour laws relating to minimum and equal wages, the right to work, working conditions (such as the Factories Act, 1948), and other core labour laws.

The understanding of and the criteria to arrive at minimum wages must be broadened so as to make it a living wage.

The government should ensure that contract workers who perform the same or similar kind of work as permanent workers in an establishment be paid the same wages.

There is a need for the strict and effective implementation of labour and criminal laws so as to prevent forced overtime, wage theft, the use by employers of violence through bouncers and security guards, attacks on freedom of association, sexual harassment, and sexual violence.

~ 7 ~
We believe that SDG 8.7 must also be realised by protecting the rights of all migrants to safe, dignified and productive migration as well as ensuring the realisation of their rights as citizens and residents.

~ 8 ~
We believe there is a direct relationship between distress migration and vulnerability to trafficking, forced labour and slavery. We oppose policies that aggravate this vulnerability caused by the agrarian and environmental crisis, the displacement of tribals, the commercialisation and mechanisation of agriculture, the militarisation of entire regions in the country, pauperisation and immiseration of the rural population, the informalisation of the employment relationship, and the effects of globalisation, privatisation, and contractualisation on the urban workforce.

~ 9 ~
Given that inequality is at the core of the caste system, the government must acknowledge that the historically exploited castes and disadvantaged communities, especially scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, and landless backward castes, are more vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation. Toward this end, it needs to start supporting international mobilisations against caste discrimination, cooperate with global organisations working for Dalit rights, and welcome international fact-finding missions on the extent of caste discrimination in India.

~ 10 ~
It is vital to explore alternative paradigms for sustainable development – ones that create sustainable livelihoods rather than perpetuate precarious forms of labour.

~ 11 ~
A comprehensive redistribution of resources – especially through land reform, distribution of government lands, and schemes for acquisition of lands at market value to grant them to the vulnerable landless communities – is crucial to prevent trafficking and forced labour.

Decades of evidence shows that economic vulnerability – understood as lack of access to rights and entitlements – underpins all forms of exploitation. A fairer social settlement based on the redistribution of resources and an effective, efficient, universal social protection floor is essential.

In this context, the implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005 must be well-resourced. Dignified, secure jobs that pay living wages must be provided under the said act. In addition to the current occupations offered under the act, waged care work must also be an occupational choice funded by the act.

~ 12 ~
We note that sex workers’ groups that have experienced the harmful effects of anti-trafficking measures for decades believe that treating all sex workers as victims of trafficking in rescue, repatriation and/or rehabilitation efforts hurt sex workers more than they help them. The term ‘repatriation’ as used here describes the practice of, after raid and rescue, taking individuals back to their place of origin, whether in the same state, another state in the country or another country, without providing for any rehabilitation. Hence any efforts to respond to trafficking must avoid the indiscriminate rescue, repatriation and rehabilitation of women, men and transgender persons who are in sex work of their own volition.
The raid, rescue, repatriation and rehabilitation policies of the Indian state in relation to sex work punish the very women they seek to protect.

Sex workers believe in the power of self-organisation and find decriminalisation of their work to be the most effective way of improving their ability to counter trafficking.

We believe that raid, rescue, repatriation and rehabilitation policies of the Indian state in relation to sex work have been a failure, as they end up punishing the very women they seek to protect. This is because raids by the police violate the human rights of raided communities, and rescues are forced upon all indiscriminately. Rehabilitation is in corrective homes where women and girls are brought after a raid and rescue operation; these homes are at best inefficient and at worst violate the human rights of the women and girls confined in them.

This policy of raid, rescue, repatriation and rehabilitation, however, forms the cornerstone of the proposed Trafficking of Persons (Prevention, Protection and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2016, and must not be pursued. Further, this ineffective policy of raids, rescue, repatriation and rehabilitation must not be extended to other forms of precarious labour such as bonded labour, contract labour, and inter-state migrant work.

~ 13 ~
The widespread culture of denial of the existence of bonded labour amongst government officials in all branches of state apparatus is a major obstacle to the realisation of SDG 8.7.

The present tendency of ‘criminalising’ bonded labour by emphasising only the ‘criminal prosecution’ component of the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act or having recourse just to S. 370 of IPC – which leads only to ‘criminal prosecution’ – must be totally discouraged. Resort to ‘criminal prosecution’ should only happen in cases of extreme violation of human rights. Offences in all other cases should be treated as labour law violations, especially the non-payment of minimum wages, and treated as such.

Survivors of trafficking and forced labour should play a central part of the government’s efforts to counter these phenomena. Hence, for example, bonded labourers should be a part of vigilance committees appointed under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976, and every mechanism set up to address forced labour and human trafficking.
The district and sub-divisional vigilance committees must be helped in carrying out their tasks extensively, effectively and speedily by allowing them to set up, under their direct supervision and monitoring, subordinate structures such as task forces at the levels of each taluk and gram panchayat. There is a greater scope for more bonded labourers to be represented in these bodies, and with their active participation, there is a greater possibility of proper and large-scale identification of bonded labourers. The comprehensive rehabilitation of trafficked, forced and bonded labourers encompassing social, psychological and economic integration is essential.
The present sketchy and non-comprehensive rules under the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 must be thoroughly revised and comprehensive. Detailed rules must be notified to give specificity and scope for time-bound action for all the significant and powerful (but otherwise too general) provisions under the Bonded Labour system (Abolition) Act, 1976.

Each state and union territory in India must devise a comprehensive action plan to implement the Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, 1976 and an overriding policy document to guide these efforts. The central government should propose a model action plan and a model policy document.

~ 14 ~
With the increasing migration from rural to urban areas, state policies managing urbanisation must ensure that the city is accessible to those from rural areas and migrants, and that public services are made available to rural migrants.

~ 15 ~
The government must focus on protecting the rights of migrant women from exploitation and ensure safe mobility. Measures to prevent exploitation must not restrict women’s mobility. The government must take steps to prevent the inter-state trafficking of women through fraudulent marriage practices.

~ 16 ~
Policy-makers must consider the unique problems of men, women, and children with a disability who are subject to trafficking and migration.

~ 17 ~
There is a critical need for implementing the rules under the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979 (ISMWA), and the licensing authority must ensure that ISMWA rules are complied with. The definition of the ‘inter-state migrant worker’ must be changed to cover women and children; contractors must be registered by the appropriate authority, and registration of migrants must occur at the district level. An adequate number of labour inspectors must be hired to ensure compliance with the act; indeed, this is critical. Given the high number of internal migrants in India, there is a need to discuss extreme levels of exploitation in relation to internal migration.

The Indian government should facilitate MOUs between states in the country to protect the rights of migrant workers and their families. The government may look to the MOU between the states of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, whereby hostels for children of seasonal migrant workers have been provided. State governments should devise action plans on migration. Portability of rights particularly for workers registered in the Construction Workers Welfare Board and ways to enhance the access of migrant workers to PDS, ICDS, voting rights, and other welfare benefits for inter-state migrant workers should be explored.

~ 18 ~
The government of India needs to support the rights of Indian workers who migrate internationally. It should play an active role in international and regional initiatives on migration and migrant work, such as the Abu Dhabi Dialogue and Colombo Process, in regional mechanisms available within the SAARC, and in the debates surrounding the Global Compact to be agreed in 2018 (Global Compact on Safe and Ordinary Migration). India must ratify the relevant ILO conventions on migrant work.

MOUs and bilateral agreements entered into by the government of India must be urgently reviewed with a view to ensure that they represent the demands of migrant workers and do not further increase the vulnerability of migrant workers. The government should ensure that Indian embassies in the Middle East are accessible to workers, and that embassy staff are sensitive to the needs of migrant workers. There is a need for more effective grievance redressal.

An urgent review of the Emigration Act, 1983 is necessary.

The government must appoint labour attachés to countries, commensurate with the number of Indian migrants who work in a particular country.

There is an urgent need for the provision of shelters for Indian workers abroad who are in a precarious situation vis-à-vis their employers, notably those who leave their employer to avoid ongoing abuse.

~ 19 ~
The skills development programme of the government, which is a significant strategy for achieving SDG 8, must be pursued but not at the expense of providing educational opportunities. Skills imparted must also be transferrable so that workers can meet the challenges of the labour market.

~ 20 ~
The government must implement the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996. The provisions of the Plantation Labour Act, 1951 must be implemented by the government. Plantation workers should be paid a living wage and be treated as semi-skilled workers.

~ 21 ~
There is an urgent need for a national-level intervention on domestic work through the adoption of the National Draft Policy on Domestic Workers and a special legislation covering domestic work. Recognition of valuable yet economically undervalued labour such as domestic work will help increase the economic bargaining power of domestic workers. We urge the government to ratify the Domestic Workers Convention 2011 (No. 189).

The value of women’s care work must be adequately recognised in the GDP.

Resident Welfare Associations must be treated as establishments for the purposes of protective labour laws including the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, and the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.

Resident Welfare Associations must be required to set up internal complaints committees as per the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 so as to address the problem of sexual harassment of domestic workers working in gated communities.

There is an urgent need to regulate placement agencies that place domestic workers with employers.

~ 22 ~
Industry-led initiatives on the private regulation of supply chains through the use of ethical certification and social auditing have generally been shown to be ineffective due to the selective auditing by companies of their supply chains (which often excludes contractors and subcontractors who are informal, unauthorised, where workers are home-based, or where logging and mining is undertaken in protected areas).

Efforts by businesses to stop the use of forced labour in their supply chains must include workers from the establishment concerned in the design and implementation of these initiatives.

The government must explore all legal mechanisms to ensure the accountability of corporations for decent working conditions of workers, including through corporate criminal law, tax laws, contract law, health and safety laws, and municipal laws.

Similarly, transparency and disclosure laws are inadequate; laws imposing extra-territorial liability and allowing for public sanctions are needed.

~ 23 ~
The demands of textile and garment workers for adequate wages, mobility, welfare benefits, and safety need to be addressed. In accordance with the Madras High Court’s orders, the Sumangali (Camp Labour System) scheme must be abolished; workers who continue to work in the scheme must be made regular. Government notifications of increased minimum wages for textile and garment work in the state of Karnataka must be implemented immediately and efforts made to raise them to living wages.

~ 24 ~
The period of apprenticeship under the Apprentices Act, 1961 must be no longer than six months; the period of temporary work after such apprenticeship must be no longer than six months.

~ 25 ~
The current targets and indicators proposed by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation as of 8 March 2017 for the realisation of SDG 8.7 are wholly inadequate. In particular, the implementation of laws should be monitored (as indicators) rather than the mere ratification of international conventions or adoption of laws. Similarly, alongside measuring the number of prosecutions of traffickers, it is essential to monitor or report on the budgetary allocation and expenditure on assistance to exploited people (bonded labourers, trafficked persons, etc.). In order to draw up an appropriate baseline, the government of India is urged to take advantage of the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 2018 to set out relevant data about the way in which Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is being respected in India.

Signatories:

1. Moushumi Basu, Jawaharlal Nehru University
2. Anannya Bhattacharjee, Garment and Allied Workers Union
3. Bharti Birla, Independent
4. Dithhi Bhattacharya, Center for Workers’ Management
5. Igor Bosc, Independent
6. Natalie Brinham, Queen Mary University of London
7. Umi Daniel, Aide et Action
8. Kiran Deshmukh, National Network of Sex Workers
9. Gopal V., Jeevika
10. Ramapriya Gopalakrishnan, Advocate
11. Basavaraj Hanchinamani, Jeevika
12. Neil Howard, Antwerp University
13. Prabha Kotiswaran, King’s College London
14. Chandan Kumar, Action Aid
15. Kusum, All India Network of Sex Workers
16. Sister Lissy, Domestic Workers’ Union
17. Rupsa Mallik, CREA
18. Mohan Mani, National Law School of India University
19. Sangita Manoji, Veshya Anyay Mukti Parishad (VAMP)
20. Babu Mathew, National Law School of India University
21. Aya Matsuura, Independent
22. Chandni Mehta, Jawaharlal Nehru University
23. Sneha Mishra, Aaina
24. Lalita Missal, NAWO
25. Nalini Nayak, Self-Employed Women’s Association
26. Neetha N., Independent
27. Aarthi Pai, Sangram
28. Gopinath K. Parakuni, CiviDep
29. Bandana Pattanaik, The Global Alliance Against Traffic in Women
30. Sony Pellissery, National Law School of India University
31. Kiran Kamal Prasad, Jeevika
32. S. M. Prithiviraj, Care T
33. R.K. Radhakrishnan, The Hindu
34. R. Meera, Women’s Initiatives (WINS)
35. Jawahar Raja, Advocate
36. Rajesh, Sangama
37. Ramaswamy M., Jeevika
38. Vani Saraswathi, Migrant-Rights.Org
39. Jayshree Satpute, Nazdeek
40. Meena Seshu, SANGRAM
41. AK Sharma, Jeevika
42. Rakesh Shukla, Advocate
43. Ramakrishna V., Jeevika
44. Ravi Srivastava, Jawaharlal Nehru University
45. Cameron Thibos, OpenDemocracy
46. Sarasu Esther Thomas, National Law School of India University
47. Vijayakumari M., Jeevika
48. Kimberly Walters, California State University

The post No easy answers for ending forced labour in India appeared first on SabrangIndia.

Pitching for labour reforms, the survey said formal employment could increase by offering employees choices when they start employment.

These include allowing them to decide whether they want 12 per cent employee contribution to be deducted from their salary.

The survey also suggested providing the workers a choice between Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) and National Pension Scheme (NPS).

It also suggested that the workers should decide whether their health insurance premiums go to Employees State Insurance (ESI) or a private health insurance of their choice.

However, it cautioned that this choice should be exercised by employees, not employers, and today?s status quo should continue to be available to all employees.

The key point is to offer choice to employees, which will also result in competition for service providers such as the EPFO and Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC), it said.

In the present scenario, the workers are mandatorily covered under the social security schemes run by the EPFO and ESIC in formal sector.

Given the difficulty of reforming labor laws per se, the thrust could be to move towards affording greater choice to workers which would foster competition amongst service providers, it said.

At the same time, it said that there could be a gradual move to ensure that at least compliance with the central labour laws is made “paperless, presenceless and cashless”.

It also pointed towards the multiplicity of labour laws and the difficulty in their compliance, describing these as impediments to the industrial development and employment generation.

At present, there are 39 Central labour laws which have been broadly proposed to be grouped into four or five Labour Codes on functional basis with the enactment of special laws for small manufacturing units
 

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Garment workers in Bangladesh, where the Walk Free Foundation estimates that 1,531,300 people are in modern slavery. (Photo: Asian Development Bank/flickr/cc)

Close to 46 million men, women, and children are enslaved across the world, according to a harrowing new report from the Australia-based Walk Free Foundation.

Many of them, the analysis notes, are in fact ensnared providing "the low-cost labor that produces consumer goods for markets in Western Europe, Japan, North America, and Australia."
The organization's 2016 Global Slavery Index—based on 42,000 interviews conducted in 53 languages, covering 44 percent of global population—found there to be 28 percent more "modern slaves" than previously estimated.

According to the report (pdf), "modern slavery refers to situations of exploitation that a person cannot refuse or leave because of threats, violence, coercion, abuse of power or deception, with treatment akin to a farm animal." The classification includes victims of human trafficking, forced labor, debt bondage, sex trafficking, forced marriage, and other such exploitation.

More than half (58 percent) of those who are enslaved are in five countries: India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Uzbekistan. In the latter country, for example, during the annual cotton harvest, one million citizens were subjected to state-sanctioned forced labor in 2015.

Accompanying the report is a case study of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, penned by Kevin Bales, a professor of Contemporary Slavery at the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation at the University of Hull in the UK.

"Slavery never happens in isolation," he writes, arguing that in the wake of armed conflict "a perfect storm of lawlessness, slavery, and environmental destruction can occur—driving the vulnerable into slave-based work that feeds into global supply chains and the things we buy and use in our daily lives."

Bales explains:

In the past twenty years, this perfect storm has hit the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A war that erupted in the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide spread across the region, bringing collapse to the Congo’s ruling dictatorship, invasion by surrounding nations, and a sharp rise in slavery and sexual violence. The armed groups that grabbed parts of the eastern provinces were not there for political or religious reasons, but to steal and sell valuable minerals and other natural resources. Lacking mining technology, but heavily armed, these criminal groups enslaved thousands of local people.
These slaves were forced to cut protected virgin forests, level mountains, spoil streams and rivers with great open-strip mines, and massacre rare and endangered species like gorillas. The minerals these slaves dug, processed and then carried on their backs to smuggle them out of the country flowed into our lives. For these slave-based, environmentally-destructive minerals are essential to making cell phones, computers, and the thousands of other electronic devices that surround us every day.

"Closing down slave-based logging, brick-making, mining, or charcoal production will not hurt our lifestyles or the global economy," he concludes. "What it will do is get people out of slavery and slow global warming and climate change—a classic win-win situation."

Walk Free also explores how violent conflict in the Middle East has led to mass "distress migration" that has in turn "had a trifold effect on neighboring host countries: (a) increased competition for low-paying jobs and employment in the informal economy; (b) increased incidence of all forms of modern slavery, such as child labor, forced begging, and forced early marriage; and (c) reduced capacity of State actors to respond to trafficking cases because already scarce resources are outlaid on the emergency provision of services to refugees instead of supporting migrant workers."

With this in mind, writes Walk Free's executive director of global research Fiona David, "a strong focus on safe, well-managed migration, whether in times of peace or conflict, must become a cornerstone of integrated international and national responses to modern slavery."

In his forward to the report, Walk Free founder and chairman Andrew Forrest puts the onus on corporations to help end modern slavery. "Businesses that don’t actively look for forced labor within their supply chains," he said, "are standing on a burning platform. Business leaders who refuse to look into the realities of their own supply chains are misguided and irresponsible."

Courtesy: Commondreams.org
 

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And Who Made this Possible?

Reclaim Rights of Workers – Reclaim Rights of All

In the late 18th century, when companies started to maximise the output of their factories, companies attempted to maximize the output of their factories by keeping them running as many hours as possible, typically implementing a “sun up to sun down” work day. Wages were also extremely low, so workers themselves often needed to work these long shifts just to get by, including often sending their children to work in the factories as well, rather than getting them educated. With little representation, education, or options, factory workers also tended to work in horrible working conditions to go along with the bad hours. The typical work day at this time lasted anywhere from 10-18 hours per day, six days a week.

In 1884, the Federation of Organized Trades and Labor Unions declared that May 1, 1886 ( Haymarket affair ) would be the first day that an eight hour work day would be made mandatory. when May 1, 1886 arrived, the first ever May Day parade was held with 350,000 workers walking off their jobs protesting for the eight hour work day. there were perhaps twice as many people out on the streets participating in various demonstrations and marches.
 
The participants in these events added up to 80,000 Haymarket affair – It began as a peaceful rally in support of workers striking for an eight-hour day and in reaction to the killing of several workers the previous day by the police. An unknown person threw a dynamite bomb at police as they acted to disperse the public meeting. The bomb blast and ensuing gunfire resulted in the deaths of seven police officers and at least four civilians; scores of others were wounded.

India Today

This May Day, 2016, under a Regime committed to curtail the rights of the working class, it is time to remember all those movements which made this possible and to remember all those brave people who stood with vision , fought for it .. so that generations can reap a healthy, all rounded, life

Yet the governments ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and most recently Maharashtra have followed the ‘Rajasthan’ model making substantive changes in laws that have undermined the critical workers rights including on factory closure and on workplace health and safety.

We gather every year across the country today to salute the martyrs who gave up their lives in the struggle for an 8 hour workday over a hundred years ago and the countless women and men who have made and continue to make enormous sacrifice in the struggle to advance the rights of the working class. As we do so on this May Day, we also evaluate the challenges before us and our ability to address these.

Government’s agenda: Take from Workers – and give to Capital
The NDA II –BJP– government when it came to power a year ago set itself the task to weaken laws that define workers rights, including trade union and collective bargaining rights and the laws that regulate the workplace, through amendment of existing laws or through new legislation. While these proposals remain on the table, the significant changes the BJP government had hoped to bring forward have not yet found their way through parliament. In some measure this is because of the united action of trade unions including through the successful country-wide general strike on 2 September last year.

Yet the governments ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and most recently Maharashtra have followed the ‘Rajasthan’ model making substantive changes in laws that have undermined the critical workers rights including on factory closure and on workplace health and safety.

This, of course, does not mean that the BJP led union government has given up its plans to lower the threshold of workers’ rights. Having used the ordinance mechanism in the first year in government, the BJP has now turned to the mechanism of ‘executive orders’. Legislatively guaranteed retirement (Employee Provident Fund) and healthcare (Employee State Insurance) provisions have been changed through executive orders. Although in the case of the EPF the critical changes have been reversed, now for the third time, most notably through the remarkable protest led by garment workers in Bengaluru and elsewhere in Karnataka, the intent of the BJP government very clear.

It will seek every possible route, including unilateral actions, to undermine workers rights and it will do everything within its power to move workers out of legislatively guaranteed social security towards arrangements that are guided by market forces and bring profit to private sector. This is not just part of the ideological core of the BJP but the inability to deliver this would undermine the BJP government’s capacity to move on its key proposals for liberalising markets further. Savings of wage workers and their healthcare expenditure constitute large volumes of money. So long as these remain within the domain of legislative guarantee and therefore within the public sector, the privatisation of the financial sector will remain incomplete. Hence the BJP government must force this shift if it is to succeed in accomplishing its task of opening up the mainstay of our economy.

The BJP government has not restricted itself to only PF and ESI. Through two successive union budgets, the government has in real terms forced wages down by effectively freezing wages of ‘honorarium workers’ and restricting government expenditure on social security and social protection. In the last month, the promise of enhanced minimum wages notwithstanding, the BJP has caused to force down wages further by notifying wages under the NREGA at levels lower than the lowest (agricultural) minimum wage in many states.

For the BJP government, wages must be driven by market forces. Wages must indeed be kept down since the agricultural sector is in crisis and industrial production remains low. The most recent data shows that employment is on a decline: workers are not just losing permanent jobs, the number of available jobs on contract too is declining. Despite this and the drought situation in about half the country, the BJP government is still unwilling to address the question of livelihood and wages.
Law is more than Intention

For the BJP government, its intention is law and that is what it has signaled to the private sector. There is a wilful violation of existing laws. There is perhaps no employer, public or private – multinational or Indian, in the country today that is not violating labour laws. And both the BJP government at the centre and state governments are now actively engaged in allowing these violations. All sections of the working class movement have effectively resisted this and have been faced with an even greater offensive.

If until now government assisted employers in violating the right to freedom of association, today government is at the forefront in violating the right to free speech and free assembly. If until now government broke trade union struggles through employing the police in making preventive arrests, today government is actively engaged in trumping up charges so as to employ criminal law to put away activists who use democratic means of dissent against government actions.

The BJP’s attack is however not restricted to workers and peasants. It seeks to change the very notion of what a nation is and what citizenship means.
In its first year in government the BJP enforced a ‘ban’ on beef. The government effectively told us what we can and cannot eat. In the past few months through its efforts to put down students, even pushing them to their death, if they ask for what is rightfully theirs or who express a views that may be at variance with the BJP, government is effectively telling us what we can say and what we cannot and what we allowed to think and what we must not think. This, the BJP must do because it not just seeks to ensure that wages are reduced to increase profits but it seeks to alter the rules of our society by taking away the rights of those who are underprivileged and hence discriminated by class, caste, religion, gender and region. This is the India that the BJP seeks to make.

Stop the Attack on Workers – Resist and Reclaim
We have between us led many struggles in the past year. Some of them have been successful in bringing long awaited relief. We have seen an enormous resistance across the country in response to the BJP governments attack on democratic rights be they in economic, social or political life.

Across the world and in the region there is, today, a rise of conservative politics that promotes individual liberty over collective rights, private sector expansion, free markets and social and political values that artificially presupposes homogeneity amongst peoples negating the enormous diversity of peoples within societies and countries and a strong national defence. This comes with a sharpened attack on institutional social protection and security, on role of public sector and therefore on democratic rights. While in the Global North, this attack manifests itself against immigrants, against religious minorities, mostly muslims, in our own country the attack has manifest itself against migrant workers mostly dalits and adivasis and against muslims (who together constitute nearly 40% of our population) – all leading to widespread xenophobia.

Our resistance, therefore, in the coming days, has to be stronger and more united and more focused to ensure that every person irrespective of class or community enjoys the right to free speech, the right to free assembly and the right to form or join an association of their own choice. In whichever country we may be in, we join them in solidarity for it is together and together alone united in our strength and purpose, both at home and abroad, will we succeed in our resolve to:

On this May Day we need to reclaim
The Right to Free Speech
The Right to Freedom of Assembly
The Right to Freedom of Association
 

(Based on a statement of the National Trade Union Initiative)
 

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