After the government announced the repeal of the three farm laws against which the farmers had been on agitating for almost a year, now it is the turn of trade unions seeking repeal of labour codes to up the ante, writes Shveta Mishra
While farmers have stepped up their protest to seek guarantee on Minimum Support Price and other contentious issues, the trade unions have already announced that they will go in for a two-day general strike in the country during the Budget Session of Parliament demanding repeal of labour codes.
Significantly, the government had claimed that the labour codes were historic, path breaking and a game changer for over 50 crore workers from organized, unorganised and self-employed. The codes are (i) Industrial Relations Code, 2020 (ii) Code on Occupational Safety, Health & Working Conditions Code, 2020 & (iii) Social Security Code, 2020 and (iv) Code on Wages. The government had clarified that these codes take into account the holistic development of the country by keeping the labour interest uppermost in the mind. The argument was that the people have suffered mostly by having multiple laws on labour which involved procedural complexities thereby hindering implementation of various welfare and safeguard provisions. With this 29 labour laws were subsumed in 4 labour codes. The Social Security Code extended the reach of ESIC to be provided in all 740 districts. Establishments working in hazardous sectors would mandatorily be linked with ESIC, even if there is only one worker working in it. Then provision for making scheme for linking unorganised sector and Gig workers with ESIC. The option to link workers working in Plantations is being given to Plantation owners and option for becoming member of ESIC is also being given to establishments with less than 10 workers.
The reach of EPFO was also extended and its coverage would be applicable on all establishments having 20 workers. At present, it was applicable only on establishments included in the Schedule. Option to join EPFO is also being given to establishments having less than 20 workers. Schemes would be formulated for bringing workers coming under the category of ‘Self-employed’ or falling under any other category under the aegis of EPFO. Provision for Gratuity has been made for Fixed Term Employees and there would not be any condition for minimum service period for this. For the first time, a Fixed Term Employee working for a determined period on contract has been given the right of social security like a Regular Employee. Similarly, with the aim of making a national database for unorganised sector workers, registration of all these workers would be done on an online portal and this registration would be done on the basis of Self Certification through a simple procedure. It would facilitate the extension of benefits of various social security schemes to beneficiaries in the unorganised sector. It was aimed to get ‘Targeted Delivery” of social security done to unorganised sector workers with the help of this database.
