Labour Laws Amended to Profit Companies & Loot Workers

The Modi 2.0 regime is unleashing a slew of anti-people, anti-democratic amendments to laws – from destruction of RTI Act, to further draconian changes of the UAPA and NIA Acts, to dilution of labour laws. On 23 July, the BJP Government has introduced two dangerously anti-working class bills in the Lok Sabha – Code on Wages 2019 (WC) and the Occupational Health, Safety and Working Conditions Code 2019 (OHSC).

Since 2014, we have been seeing the systematic dilution and erosion of hard-won laws meant to protect labour rights. During the Modi government’s first tenure, trade union activists were hounded and jailed; sustained protests for workers’ rights were effectively criminalized. On the other hand, the Mallyas, the Choksis and the Nirav Modis were allowed to loot public resources and then scoot. Now, in the beginning of Modi’s second tenure, we are seeing an unprecedented economic crisis. Unemployment is at a 45-year high, workers are bearing the brunt of massive retrenchment, growing job insecurity and contractualisation, less than minimum wages. Now, these two bills, WC and OHSC, will further deteriorate the already dismal condition of the working class in the country.

What is the official ‘justification’ of these bills? The government says this will “ease” the process of “doing business” and kick start the comatose economy. Let us look at this argument. MANY changes can be brought in to ensure “ease of doing business”, to kick start the economy and generate more jobs. Rules and regulations could be simplified. Procedural administrative red-tapism must be done away with. Fiscal steps could be taken to improve purchasing power of the poor and to boost demand. In fact, if the government encourages a culture of decent wages and safe dignified work conditions, it will only boost workers’ productivity as well as purchasing power, which in turn will boost both business and market.

Then WHY is it that the government focuses ONLY on diluting and scuttling workers’ rights, which it portrays as the enemy of “doing business”? Since when did the right of a worker to a dignified livelihood and safe working conditions hamper the economy? Fact is, in the eyes of this government, which is dedicated solely to serve the interest of corporates, “ease of business” should mean the ‘right’ to NOT pay minimum wages, the ‘right’ to arbitrarily hire-and-fire workers, the ‘right’ to dictate a docile and meek workforce robbed of all democratic rights to organise and assert.

Let’s be clear, today’s all round economic and business crisis is not because of workers walking away with heft pay! On the contrary, it is because of crashing demand, governmental redtapism and above all the policy of cronyism to favour chosen corporate to corner bulk of resources and ‘incentives’ (read subsidies). But instead of addressing any of the above, the Modi govt is obsessed with snatching away existing legal safety nets for workers rights as the only way for promoting its so called “ease of business”. Clearly, the present push for ‘Labour Law Reforms’ is driven NOT by any enlightened interest of the business and economy, but by the crass class interest to further disenfranchise, subjugate and exploit those on whose hard toil the very edifice of business and economy rests.

WC & OHSC – Formula for Ending Safeguards for Workers Rights and Promoting Unbridled Corporate Loot

• Getting Rid of Labour Inspections: According to the proposed changes, labour inspections – which are meant to locate violations of labour laws – can happen online, or through phone! Now, there will no longer be any actual inspections of the shop floor. Besides, inspectors can inform employers before the inspection and also “forgive” them for violations. This is a complete travesty of the very concept of inspections. As it its, violations are rampant. 81% of the employed in India are in the informal sector, where inhuman labour law violations are widespread. The proposed changes would effectively kill the idea of accountability of the employer for all practical purposes.

• Further Dilution of Minimum Wage Regulations: Currently, the law prescribes strict penalties for violating the Minimum Wage regulations. Employers’ property could be attached in case of violations. The proposed amendments seek to remove these crucial deterrents, and would lead to more brazen violations.

• Absolving the Principal Employer of All Responsibility and Accountability: As per the proposed amendments, the ‘principal employer’ would have NO responsibility for guaranteeing mandated wages to the workers hired through contractors and agencies. Further, they would have NO responsibility or liability even for workplace accidents, deaths etc. This is complete roll back of the crucial concept of “principle employer”, wherein institutions have to be accountable for any violations committed by contractors paid by them, and working on their premises. The writing of this principle into the law was the result of several protracted struggles, and now the government wants to retract on this crucial bedrock of workers’ rights. This will only encourage fly-by-night contractors who violate the law with impunity and who will now escape accountability because their employer is left off the hook.

• Intensifying Contractualisation: These bills purposefully blur the differences between “perennial” and “non-perennial” work. Now, workers performing duties which are actually perennial in nature will be considered as contractual workers, and therefore will not be able to avail of several rights due to permanent workers. Perennial work happens on an everyday basis. To draw an example from our own campus, the works of sanitation, mess, horticulture, electrical, security, office staffs – these are all perennial tasks. Logically, no institution can run without these tasks which happen 365 days a year. But, again in our university, most of the staffs employed in the above mentioned departments are contractual workers. Now, this illegal activity is being provided a LEGAL cover by the government!

These amendments are nothing but an unbridled freedom for companies to violate all existing labour laws. The only thing the BJP Government cares about the profit of Adani – Ambani, it is a Government of the corporate, for the corporate, by the corporate! And when it comes to the workers, we can see the shameless apathy. Two weeks back, the Union Cabinet played a cruel joke when it raised the national minimum wage by a mere Rs. 2 per day, from Rs. 176 to Rs. 178!

Today, all Central Trade Unions except the RSS-affiliated Bhartiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) joined in a Nationwide Protest against these anti-worker amendments. AISA stands in solidarity with workers in their fight against the anti-people, anti-worker Modi regime. We must fight back to save the hard-won laws protecting labour rights.

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