Implementation of 4 labour codes stalled

The implementation of the four labour codes, passed by Parliament between 2019 and 2020 and which seek to bring sweeping changes to India’s job market, has been stalled. They are unlikely to take effect before the general election slated for 2024, people aware of the matter have said.

The four codes consolidated a complex web of 29 central labour laws. These are the Code on Wages, 2019; the Industrial Relations Code, 2020; the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020; and the Code on Social Security, 2020. They have been both praised and criticised in equal measure.

Three key reasons are holding up the codes, the persons quoted above said. One, some states are yet to publish rules to set the codes in motion, as required, since labour is a subject over which both Centre and states have jurisdiction.

Two, talks between the Union labour ministry and unions have stalled and, three, the Centre is inclined to take all stakeholders on board for which there needs agreement on key provisions. Given that the Modi government had to withdraw the farm laws in 2021, the Centre does not want a situation where unions go on industrial strikes and disrupt the economy, one of them said.

“It was being hoped that all formalities regarding the labour codes would have been completed and they could take effect in the beginning of the financial year 2024, that is April 2023,” one official said, requesting anonymity.

Ravinder Himte, the general secretary of the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), said there was no possibility of agreeing to some of the codes until the government accepted their recommendations, especially on the Industrial Relations Code and The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020.The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)-affiliated BMS said it “whole-heartedly welcomed” the other codes.

The Code On Industrial Relations lays down new conditions on the right of workers to go on strike. Unions will now have to give 60 days’ strike notice. If proceedings are pending before a labour tribunal or the National Industrial Tribunal, workers cannot go on a strike for 60 days after they are concluded. These conditions apply to all industries. Earlier, workers could go on strike by giving between two weeks and six weeks of notice. Flash strikes will be outlawed.

A platform of 10 trade unions, barring the RSS-affiliated BMS, had urged labour minister Bhupender Yadav to scrap the four codes, saying they were anti-worker. “The codes are exploitative and represent a serious erosion of labour rights,” said TN Karumalaiyan of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions.

Currently, 31 states have published draft rules under the Code on Wages, while 26 states have come out with draft rules on occupation safety code. On the industrial relation code, preliminary processes have been completed by 28 states. A similar number have published draft rules on the social security law.

Maharashtra notified rules for the codes on March 20. The Union government had recently directed the Union Territories to speedily frame rules regarding the key industrial relation code, which have been complied with. These are the National Capital Territory of Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Lakshadweep, Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Daman and Diu and Puducherry.

Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Manipur, Bihar, and UT of Jammu and Kashmir, have framed required regulations under the new labour laws.