Decoding the Labour Codes - A Handbook for Workers

Christ University Law Journal

The penetrating debate on Indian labour laws obstructing the flexibility of the labour market has taken centre stage in the last two decades, post the period of liberalisation of the economy. With the purpose of rationalizing and simplifying labour laws to facilitate `ease of doing business’, the Indian government has formulated new labour codes, which is considered the most important step towards reforming labour laws in the past three decades. On the other hand, it is emphatically stressed by the labour unions that the Indian labour market continues to be `flexible’ to the advantage of employers, despite the presence of allegedly `constricting labour laws’ and any further dilution of extant labour law framework will adversely affect the working class. In this context, this paper discusses the implications of the current shift in the labour-law paradigm in India, brought out by the new labour codes. The paper also highlights the need for duly addressing the most recent insecurities...

This paper will seek to understand how the labour industry in India works and why it is important to have effective laws to protect the vulnerable population working in the informal sector which is an important part of India’s labour force. The question is how effective laws can be used to increase the productivity of the labour force including both men and women. The paper then also focus on the wage game debate as how to women who today constitute a substantial portion of the working population in India are still denied equal payment for equal work. The argument here is that the labour market in India is structured in such a way that instead of creating favourable working conditions for women, it is highly unfavourable for them and this extends to both the formal and informal sector.

International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, 2020

This paper provides an insight into ongoing labour market reforms in India. In order to safeguard life and the dignity of the workers and to align labour market policies with the requirement of changing labour market, the Government of India has laid down four Codes on labour viz; Codes on Wages; Industrial Relations; Social Security & Welfare; and Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions respectively, by rationalizing, amalgamating and simplifying the relevant provisions of the existing 44 central labour laws. The restructuring of existing 44 Central Labour Acts into four major Codes is expected to reduce the complexity in its compliance, promote employment generation by enabling business environment and facilitate ease of doing business. At the same time, these initiatives are also expected to improve life and the dignity of workers by safeguarding their interest, providing social security benefits against risk, ensuring better work & working conditions, suitable and timely payment of wages and hygienic working environment. The paper also highlights challenges in the implementation of some provisions of the Code and suggests modifications so that the benefits of labour market reforms can reach to both workers and employers.

Working Paper, Institute of Social Studies Trust, 2021

In recent years, India has seen a wide-ranging retrenchment of hard-won labour rights with serious consequences for working communities in general, and for the rights of women workers. The retrenchment of labour rights has occurred through a range of governance reforms and changes to labour laws at both central and state levels in the name of enabling the ‘ease of doing business’ through ‘labour flexibility’. A significant component of the labour law reforms at the central level have come through a heavily contested exercise to consolidate and simplify (what was eventually to be 29) labour laws into four Codes on Wages, Industrial Relations, Social Security, and Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions, which were enacted between August 2019 and September 2020, after the National Democratic Alliance government was returned to power. This paper provides a gendered analysis of the four central Codes, particularly focusing on the effects of the Codes on informal women workers. It contextualises women’s work in India, as well as the wider relationship between labour laws and women’s work, including paid and unpaid work. To evaluate the import of the Codes, it also draws on the proposals made by the Second National Labour Commission (SNCL), which has formed the basis of the reforms, as well as the reports of the National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS), which have made several proposals for regulating the informal economy. Given the continued patchy and piecemeal recognition of the rights of informal women workers by the Codes that have also hollowed out labour rights for even those in the formal economy, the paper discusses the way forward for the labour rights of women in the informal economy.

Never before in human history have so few owed so much to so many...A handful of men in this country have trained the remaining 99.9 per cent -as strong, as talented, as intelligent in every way -to exist in perpetual servitude: a servitude so strong that you can put the key of his emancipation in a man's hands and he will throw it back at you with a curse. You'll have to come here and see it for yourself to believe it. Every day millions wake up at dawn -stand in dirty, crowded buses -get off at their masters' posh houses -and then clean the floors, wash the dishes, weed the garden, feed their children, press their feet -all for a pittance: