New Delhi: The claims that the new labour codes will ensure minimum wages and social security for workers are “unsubstantiated”, Samyukt Kisan Morcha (SKM) said on Monday, highlighting that 90 per cent of workers are in the unorganised sector and out of the ambit of these codes.
It also slammed the new codes, stating that they negate the right of workers to form trade unions and have imposed stringent conditions on holding a strike.
The SKM also said that it has legalised 12-hour work days from the present 8 hours, which is a universally accepted right of workers, negating Article 42 of the Constitution of India that ensures just and human conditions of work.
“SKM strongly deplores the false corporate propaganda to eulogise the 4 Labour codes which are the most regressive labour reforms since Independence. SKM wholeheartedly supports the united trade unions movement’s determined protest to fight the Labour Codes to restore their rights as well as to attain other basic demands,” the SKM said in a statement.
“The tall claim of the Prime Minister that the labour codes ensure minimum wages and social security to all workers is unsubstantiated. More than 90% of the workers who are in the unorganised sector are out of the ambit of the Labour Codes. The Labour Codes have now put 90% of the remaining workers out of legal protection,” it said.
The SKM pointed out that the Industrial Relations Code exempts units with fewer than 300 workers from the requirement of obtaining prior government permission for lay-offs, retrenchment and closures from the threshold of 100 workers earlier.
“Also, units with fewer than 20 or 40 workers (depending on power use) are exempt from specific provisions of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (OSHWC) Code and are not required to register as a factory which were 10 and 20 earlier,” it said, adding that data from the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) in 2021-22 showed that factories employing less than 100 people constituted 79.2 per cent of all factories.
SKM said there is no enforcement mechanism for ensuring minimum wages of social security in the unorganised sector, and the Union government is unwilling to accept the demands for increasing the minimum wage to Rs 26,000.
Charging that the new Labour Codes negate the right of workers to form trade unions, the SKM said that they virtually ban strikes due to stringent conditions, such as the requirement for a mandatory 60-day notice period and prohibition on holding protests during conciliation proceedings.
“It has legalised 12 hour’s work days from the present 8 hours work day which is universally accepted right of workers, negating Article 42 of the Constitution of India that ensures just and human conditions of work,” it said.
SKM said the BJP-RSS leadership are answerable to the people.
“The leadership of BJP, RSS and BMS owe an explanation whether they stand with the corporates or with the people of India. The Modi Government has succumbed to the corporate monopolies to betray working people and the young generation,” it alleged.
The umbrella body of farmers’ organisations, which had led the 2020-21 farmers’ protests at Delhi borders, also said that the views and recommendations of the trade unions were not taken into consideration.
“Indian Labour Conference (ILC), a crucial tripartite consultation forum, has not been convened since 2015. Highly authoritarian way of imposing corporate dominance over the working people is not acceptable,” it said.
It called upon people to join the protest called by the SKM and Joint Platforms of Central Trade Unions and Sectoral Federations and other unions of workers and agricultural workers to be held on November 26.
