By Raju Vernekar
Mumbai, April 30:
Even as we are celebrating the International Workers’ Day on First May, with drastic changes in labour laws to ensure the “Ease of Business”, the uncertainty looms large in labour arena across the country.
While presenting the budget 2022, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said that the next target of the government is to create 60 lakh jobs with “PM Gati Shakti” which will pull forward the economy and will lead to more jobs and opportunities for the youth.
The Mumbai-based Centre for Monitoring India Economy (CMIE) in its recent report has stated that the overall unemployment rate in the country has dropped to 7.5 per cent with urban unemployment rate at 8.5 per cent and rural at 7.1 per cent in April this year.
But the situation varies in different parts of the country. As per the data, Haryana has the highest unemployment rate at 26.7 per cent, followed by Rajasthan and Jammu and Kashmir at 25 per cent each. Bihar is at 14.4 per cent, Tripura at 14.1 per cent and West Bengal at 5.6 per cent.
The permanent jobs are waning out and the contract system is the order of the day. Surprisingly over 100 casual employees continue to work on the contract basis, in the Union Government-controlled media-Mumbai Doordarshan, for the last over 5 years. Even some of the departments of the Maharashtra Government, have been employing people on contract basis with minimum salary.
As against this, those in organised sector continue to fight for more remuneration. It is common knowledge that the successive Pay Commissions are being set up to fulfil the demands of the Government employees by the Union Government. Also the dearness allowance based on inflation is revised time to time.
Several jobs were lost and the economy was thrown out of gear due to Covid pandemic in the last two years. The number of gainfully employed people which was 44 crore in 2013, came down to 38 crore in 2021. This meant that 6 crore people went out of jobs. Although the Union Government claims to be generating jobs every year, no jobs are available says CPM Polit Bureau member Dr Ashok Dhawale. In Maharashtra alone nearly 4 lakh people are unemployed. Over 90 percent people work in the unorganised sector across the country. We had organised a nationwide agitation in March this year and now we will have to organise the agitation on a massive scale one again, Dr Dhawale stated.
According to Comrade Prakash Reddy (CPI, Maharashtra), with growing unemployment, the social security leaves much to be desired. The Provident Fund interest rate has been brought down to 8.1 per cent which was 8.5 and more earlier. The norms related to payment of minimum wages, bonus and gratuity have undergone a sea change. An eight hour shift is gradually turning into 12 hour shift in most of the establishments. Besides, the firms up to 300 workers can hire and fire without government nod.
The Union Government has consolidated nearly 29 central labour laws into four major labour codes, namely: The Code on Industrial Relations, 2020 (CIR), The Code on Wages 2019 (COW), the Code on Social Security, 2020 (CSS) and The Code on Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions, 2020 (OSH). The objective behind this initiative is “to generate employment and to facilitate ease of doing business”. But these codes focus on macroeconomic growth rather than workers’ growth.
While the COW was passed in 2019, the remaining three labour codes were passed during the Monsoon Session of the Parliament in 2020, amidst a boycott by the Opposition over the contentious farm laws. These labour codes are yet to be notified, and rules under them are being finalised. But a provision to sack workers by the firms employing the workforce up to 300 workers serves as a handy weapon, other changes are also detrimental.
The country has over 40 million internal migrant workers. The Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979 (ISMA), has been subsumed under the OSH Code, which encompasses the Factories Act, 1948, the Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996 and the Contract Labour (Abolition and Regulation) Act, 1970 (“CLA”) .
Whereas earlier the ISMA was applicable to the establishments that employed 5 or more workers, now the ISMA would be applicable to establishments that employ 10 or more workers. Due to this increased threshold, the majority of establishments will be left outside the scope of regulation.
Similarly, while the CLA applied to establishments that hired 20 or more contract workers earlier, now the Chapter on Contract Labour applies only to establishments hiring 50 or more workers. As a consequence, a large proportion of workers will be left without legal protection and will be vulnerable to exploitation without remedy.
Under the ISMA, an inter-state migrant worker was defined as a person “recruited by or through a contractor in one state for employment in another state. Now the OSH Code includes the workers directly employed by the employer in the destination state and the “contractor” has been dropped. Besides the Code has introduced income as a criterion by excluding those who earn more than Rs 18,000 per month, from the scope of its protection.
Besides under the OSH, the contractor is not liable to pay a displacement allowance to the inter-state migrant workers. The code also does not give protection to intra-state migrant workers. Basically a majority of the migrants are the migrants within state boundaries.
Migrant workers
In the meanwhile most of the states have began registering the construction workers and the licenses are given to contractor employing migrant workers under ISMA. However the lack of documents, and requirement of more than 90 days work in a year hinders the registration. Besides such online registrations give wide scope to agents carrying out such registration work
The lock downs in the first and second Covid wave exposed the lack of preparedness of most states although subsequently some compensation was given to the construction workers. In Maharashtra a sum of Rs 1500 per worker was given during the first and second waves benefitting over 12 lakh construction workers.
ONORC
Also the Union Government has claimed successful implementation of the ‘One Nation One Ration Card’ (ONORC) scheme which facilitates buying subsidised ration from any fair price shop in the country. There are 77 crore beneficiaries in 34 states and Union territories and Delhi, Haryana, Maharashtra and Gujarat are the top destination states which have recorded the maximum number of inward transactions, according to the Union Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ministry.
Labour laws, are expected to correct power relations between employers and workers. They should not be used as a weapon against the working class.
