Madhya Pradesh (MP) and Uttar Pradesh (UP) governments recently made changes to their existing labour laws in a bid to revitalize their coronavirus hit economies. The UP government has outrightly suspended all their labour laws for a period of three years except for laws that protect timely payment of workers’ wages, protection of workers’ health and safety and prohibition of bonded labour. Workers will lose their right to form unions, right to raise disputes, right to have grievance compensation systems in place, right to gratuity and right to workers’ welfare in UP under the new changes being proposed. The outright suspension of labour laws in UP is draconian and reminiscent of a certain empire we gained independence from over seventy years ago.

Meanwhile the MP government has been more reserved in their amendments as the changes proposed by the government are mainly for new industries starting production for the first time in the next 1,000 days. These changes will suspend the workers’ right to fair dispute settlement systems in effect preventing workers from negotiating for better pay and the need for large scale action to settle minor disputes. Another change is the suspension of the Industrial Relations Acts (1960), which will lead to the rebuttal of protection for workers’ unions from dismissal and reduction in pay as retaliatory actions by employers to the formation of trade unions.

These changes have been made in an obvious attempt to revitalize the pandemic hit faltering Indian economy by trying to attract the manufacturers looking to move away from China. For years, industrialists have been lobbying for an amendment in the existing labour laws in India which they deemed were overprotective of the workers and archaic in nature. Some of these laws have been proven to be draconian and in need of change to allow for more rapid industrialisation to support our unemployed population. But one could argue that these laws have been responsible for the prevention of sweatshops similar to those present in Bangladesh, Pakistan and China. The existing labour laws have served their purpose of preventing exploitation of workers and should continue to do so no matter the changes being envisaged. The changes made by the government should look into mitigating the costs to industrialists from bureaucratic red tape rather than going after labour laws alone.

Written by

Vijay Vinod, Intern

Other Articles