With each day of the new government, the labourers of the country are facing unprecedented livelihood and survival issues. They are being clogged down to the last bit of their dignity and energy. While there is no real improvement in the contract and unorganised labourer’s conditions in the country, the government has taken up some “bold” steps to make the section more and more dependent on their employers, that is, they have made the system friendlier for the employers to oppress them.
Even the women workers have not been saved from the onslaught. While it is a known truth that in many sectors of organised labour, even today, there is a distinct difference between the wages of the male and the female. The government, on the other hand, has even put its fist of oppression more (though indirectly) on the women worker’s, their shifts have been made flexible, so as to suit the needs of the employers. This recent amendment in the Factories Act, shall, as we shall see, in due time bring about nothing but the replacement of women workers by men with a lower salary.
The Factories Act has not been indeed about that only but also has been changed in the overtime section, where the overtime limits have been increased from 50 to 100 per quarter, which is double. As the progressive labour force of the country fails to see any logic in the decision, the carving on the wall is clear. The government wants the working hours to be elongated, which is nothing but the infringement of human rights of the huge mass of workers employed in various sectors.
Along with the Factories Act, amendments were brought in the Apprentices Act too. First of all, the definition has been changed, such as to include contractors within the purview of the act, to facilitate the entry of unorganised labour in the section. But that is just the beginning; the nail in the coffin was the decision of the centre to give full power to the employers to decide the working hours of the apprentices. While earlier, the working hours were decided by the CAC, now with the change, the apprentices will not be having any higher body to complain, practically, they will be at the mercy of their employers. The issue of the contract between an employer and an apprentice have been liquidated too, in the earlier settlement, if an employer failed to procure jobs for the apprentice if mentioned in the contract, he could have been jailed if the apprentice complained to the proper authority in the proper way, but presently, he can only be fined and never jailed. The government through these changes has given a freeway to the employers to use and throw the apprentices as and when they deem fit.
Issues of apprentices have seldom made it into the national level press and thus have been deprived of the importance they deserve. Today, an ITI pass out has to spend a considerable number of years apprenticing and working for a low percentage of his salary, close to ten, to get a full time job, which keeping in mind the economic capabilities of a large number of ITI students is very disturbing and problematic for them.
The Labour laws act was facilitated by the UPA regime to bring about anti labour reforms in to the working of the country but due to the interference of the left and democratic forces in the parliament did not get employed. The present government though, enjoying a full majority in the house, has employed the bill in all its glory. The small scale industries, who were relaxed from paying returns to the governments, now fall under the category of “Return Giving” companies. The number of workers necessary for terming a small scale industry has been changed to bring in more such firms within the act, and thus generating more revenue from them. The wages of majority of the employees in such firms, which is only a trifle of what even the middle class earns, would likewise, go down, if the companies are to pay revenues.
Narendra Modi, on the 17th of March, said, as reported in the Indian Express, “Ease of business is the first and foremost requirement if Make in India has to be made successful.” If by that, he meant that the workers would need to be squeezed more and more, and the bureaucrats and bourgeoisie would be given more and more freedom to oppress the workers according to heir whims, then surely, the concept of “Make In India” needs to be revisited for good.
