Draft Press Release, 15 May 2020
The joint platform of Central Trade Unions (CTUs) in their meeting held on 14th May 2020 took note of the critical situation for the working people in the country during the lockdown period and decided to enhance united actions to meet the challenge.
Taking shelter under the umbrella of COVID-19 Pandemic, every day the Govt. is taking one or other decisions to attack the working class and common people of the country who are already in deep distress and miseries in the midst of lockdown in the country. The Trade Unions independently and unitedly have made several representations to the Prime Minister and Labour Minister in this regard as well as about the rampant violations of the government’s own directives/advisories in regard to payment of full wages to workers during lockdown and non-termination of employment but in vain. Similarly, all the announcements made by the government in regard to ration distribution, even meagre cash transfer to women and senior citizens, etc have failed at the ground level and did not reach the majority of the beneficiaries.
As the mass of the working people has been subjected to inhuman sufferings owing to loss of jobs, loss of wages, eviction from residences etc. reducing them to hungry non-entities in the process of 48 days lockdown, the Govt of the day at the centre is aggressively moving to push the working people into virtual slavery. In desperation, the migrant workers have been walking for several hundreds of miles on roads, on railway tracks, through fields and jungles to reach their homes with several precious lives having been lost on the way due to hunger, exhaustion and accidents. But even after three spells of lockdown, all announcements of Govt including the latest one on 14th May 2020 did nothing for relieving the common people and workers from the miseries they are suffering except making tall talks and misstatements, displaying cruel insensitivity to the miseries and distress of majority of the populace. Now the Government at the centre, in a most dubious manner, taking the advantage of prolonged lockdown period, has been targeting the rights of the workers and the trade unions towards virtual elimination of all labour rights. It has taken the strategy of letting loose their pliant state governments to take such anti-worker and anti-people autocratic measures and many other state governments are being made to follow the same path to the detriment of the rights and livelihood of workers. The advisories to this effect are being sent to the state Governments.
UP government has brought a draconian ordinance titled “Uttar Pradesh Temporary Exemption for certain labour laws ordinance 2020” under the guise of facilitating economic activities. With one stroke 38 laws are made defunct for 1000 days (almost three years) and the remaining are only section 5 of Payment of Wages Act 1934, Construction Workers Act 1996, Compensation Act 1993 and Bonded Labour Act 1976 which remain functional. Those laws made defunct include Trade Union Act, Industrial Disputes Act, Act on Occupational Safety and Health, Contract Labour Act, Interstate Migrant Labour Act, Equal Remuneration Act, Maternity Benefit Act etc.
Madhya Pradesh Government has brought drastic changes in Factories Act, Contract Act and Industrial Dispute Act in a manner where the employers will be empowered to hire and fire the labour at their will; right to dispute raising and grievance redressal will be put on ban; the contractors will not be required to obtain a license for supplying labour up to 49 persons and hence will function without any regulation and control; inspection will be virtually withdrawn and the entire enforcement machinery is put under freeze –making whatever law is in vogue and basic rights of the workers on wages, compensation, safety etc absolutely meaningless. Not only that the employers were also exempted from payment of Rs 80/- per labourer to Madhya Pradesh Labour Welfare Board. The Shop and Establishment Act is amended to let the shops function from 6 am to 12 at night that means 18 hours at a go by MP government.
Gujarat government has blatantly taken an illegal decision of increasing working hours from 8 to 12 hrs but no payment for extra working hours and it now desires to go the UP government way to suspend several laws for 1200 days. The Govts of Assam and Tripura and several others have been actively preparing to take the same route.
This retrograde anti-worker move came in the second stage after 8 state governments(Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Odisha, Maharshtra, Rajasthan, Bihar and Punjab) have enhanced the daily working hours from eight hours to 12 hours through an executive order in violation of the Factories Act, taking advantage of the lockdown situation.
These draconian measures are not only to facilitate more brutal and cruel exploitation of workers without their rights for collective bargaining, dispute over proper wages, safety at workplace and guarantee of social security etc, but also to throw them into conditions of slavery, in the interests of more profiteering despite the continuing economic slowdown.
All this means that the workers are to be used as bonded labour without any rights for sheer exploitation in the interest of capital without any guarantee of wages, safety and healthcare, social security and above all human dignity only to benefit those who maximize their profits on the blood and sweat of workers. This is against the basic tenets of human rights.
Indian working class is sought to be pushed back into British Era. The trade union movement cannot accept such nefarious design lying down and resolves to fight back unitedly with all their might with determination to defeat the anti-worker anti-people policies, of which these are a part. We have to mount a resistance against such design of imposing slavery through countrywide struggle in the days to come.
The CTUs note with satisfaction that already protests have been organized jointly by the workers and trade unions against such brutal and draconian anti-people and anti-worker measures in numerous states and industries, reflecting the fighting mood of the working people.
In this background, to begin with, the joint platform of Central Trade Unions has decided to observe nationwide protest day against the anti-worker and anti-people onslaughts of the government on 22nd May 2020. The national-level leaders of the trade unions would organise daylong hunger strike at Gandhi Samadhi, Rajghat, Delhi. Simultaneous protest actions would be jointly organised in all the states.
In the meanwhile, the state-wise and sector-wise issue-based ongoing actions have to be intensified and with the determination and perspective of heightening the united struggle to halt the retrograde policies of trampling the hard-won labour rights by the Govt through nationwide strike action in the days to come.
The CTUs have also decided to send joint representation to ILO in regard to the violations being committed by Govt of India in regard to all the international commitments on labour standards and human rights.
The Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions and Federations calls upon to make the programme of Nationwide Protest day a massive success throughout the country while maintaining the norms of physical distancing and also upholding social solidarity.
INTUC AITUC HMS CITU AIUTUC TUCC SEWA AICCTU LPF
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Editorial addition: J John, in an article “Covid-19: Metaphors of War and the Justifications for Labour Rights Violations”, explains the impact of the changes in labour laws being made by the state governments:
‘Labour’ being in the concurrent list in the Constitution, the states are on a race to the bottom to make labour laws inoperable and to attract investments. To put it in perspective, the labour laws that the governments diluted or made defunct include The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947; Trade Unions Act, 1926; Minimum Wages Act, 1948; Payment of Wages Act, 1936; Payment of Bonus Act, 1965; Employees Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952; Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948; Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972; Factories Act, 1948; Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946; Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1953; Contract Labour (Regulation & Abolition) Act, 1970; Equal Remuneration Act, 1976; the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961 and the Unorganised Workers Social Security Act, 2008.
The changes in these laws have impact at five key levels.
1. Recruitment: The changes provide freedom to employers to hire workers at will and fire them at will. It also allows greater freedom for contractors to source and deploy workers.
2. Working Conditions: Most heinous among the moves is the act of raising working hours from the current 8 hours to 12 hours ridiculing not only Indian labour history but also the history of international labour movement beginning 1817, which coined the slogan: “Eight hours’ labour, Eight hours’ recreation, Eight hours’ rest”. The first Convention (No.1 of 1919) by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) introduced a maximum standard working time of 48 hours per week and eight hours per day as an international norm. India ratified the Convention in 1921. Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Odisha, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Bihar and Punjab have also enhanced working hours from 8 to 12 hours.
3. Payment of Wages: The changes provide justifications for employers to flout established norms in fixing and disbursement of wages resulting in huge underpayment, non-payment or delayed payment of wages of employees. The non-applicability of Minimum Wages Act can force workers to work for poverty wages.
4. Industrial Relations: Right to form associations or unions is a fundamental right of all citizens of India. Trade Union Act, 1926 legalises this right in the economic sphere and represent the core values and foundations of democratic India. Under the cover of COVID-19, the governments are taking away this right from the people of India. Linked to these are the proposed changes in ID Act, 1947 which will allow easy closures and retrenchments and disturb the existing methods of dispute raising and grievance redressal in establishments in which TUs are active agents.
5. Social Security: It is known that India’s social security provisions are fragmented and that 93% of India’s work force being in informal employment are without any social protection. The COVID-19 related labour law changes discussed above takes away social security rights of the remaining 7% of India’s workforce, who are in the so-called formal employment.
Most importantly, the changes in labour laws are affecting not just the formal workers but all workers; these have universal impact on workers. None of the far reaching changes in labour law have been brought about in consultation with the labour unions, which has prompted the ILO to say in a press note that “such amendments should emanate from tripartite consultation involving the government, the workers’ and the employers’ organisations and be compliant with the international labour standards, including the Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work (FPRW).” What instruments have been used by the Government to make these sweeping changes?
While imposing the lockdown, government of India has invoked Section 6(2)(1) of the National Disaster Management Act (NDMA), 2005. The violation of any of the directives, the order of MHA noted, could attract severe penalties including imprisonment under the NDMA. However, it is not clear whether NDMA gives powers to the government to make changes in labour laws. Most of the states including UP used Section 5 of the Factory Act to bring in changes in working hours, which gives ‘power to exempt during public emergency’, where ‘public emergency’ is defined as “means a grave emergency whereby the security of India or of any part of the territory thereof is threatened, whether by war or external aggression or internal disturbance.”
(J. John is an independent researcher, writer and activist based in New Delhi. He is former executive director of the Centre for Education and Communication (CEC) and among the founders of the English bimonthly Labour File.)
