Suspension of Labour Laws
Indian Labour Laws which are often criticized for being inflexible. Labour Laws makes it mandatory for a company with over 100 workers employed to seek Government’s approval before firing them. This also causes a hesitation amongst such companies when it comes to hiring new workers as employees. It has also been said that these laws are too many in numbers and unnecessarily complicated with ineffective implementation. It has also been called as a foundation for corruption. There are way more no formally contracted workers employed in the organized sectors than workers with formal contracts.
In these times where a virus has suspended functioning of the entire nation, a few states such as Gujarat, UP, Rajasthan, etc. have made changes in the labour laws of the state. Even MP, Odisha and Punjab have decided to amend the labour laws. Due to dwindling economy, Governments are trying to provide for incentives to companies and firms to restart the economic activities. The fact that the labour law falls under the Concurrent list which means no state can suspend or cancel any laws under this list without the Central Government’s approval.
UP has decided to totally suspend labour law for the next three years including the Minimum Wages Act which had set a minimum wage for all kinds of workers. Removing of labour laws will strip the workers of their basic rights and also reduce the wages earned by them as there is nothing that can prevent it. From a worker’s point of view the Government has done a complete 180o flip by suspending labour laws. Initially the Government had asked all the firms to not fire their workers and pay them their wages in full and now has decided to suspend all their rights thus giving the firms a free hand for not just firing the workers but also deciding their wages even if it makes worker’s life miserable.
Statistics show that there is a wide difference between formal and informal wage rate and difference is of as much as 80%, so one can only imagine what will happen if there are no labour laws. It will lead to a sharp fall in the wage rate and there would be no official way for the labour to seek grievance redressal.
Technically it would be possible to boost economy and increase employment by suspend the labour laws but as history suggests a terrible or no worker protection law doesn’t attract investments and instead promotes the workers to switch to a different job where they are protected and looked after while a few are unable to secure jobs in other fields are left with two options, either to stay unemployed or to work under laws which doesn’t protect them from exploitation. The latter option is terrible news for the nation and thus must be seriously looked into before deciding to suspend labour laws
The UP government has stated that it seek the Central Government’s views before introducing the bill in the Parliament. While the other governments plan on introducing these bills as soon as the Parliament is in session.
