People's Democracy

  CITU Denounces Surreptitious Move to Change Labour Laws

IN complete violation of the commitment made in the National Common Minimum Programme, the UPA government has already started surreptitious move to make changes in labour laws to empower the employers with arbitrary rights to ‘hire and fire’ at will and introduce contract system in almost all kinds of occupations. The labor ministry has circulated a note reportedly prepared by the prime minister’s office among some members of parliament and the state governments which makes certain retrograde proposals of amendments to Industrial Disputes Act and Contract Labour (Regulation & Abolition) Act — which are all aimed at introducing ‘hire and fire’ regime at the workplace and contractorise and/or casualise the entire workforce — totally in tune with the urge for labour market flexibility as expressed by the prime minister in his recent utterings to Mckinsey.

The note circulated by the labour ministry, inter alia, contained proposals:

• To amend Industrial Dispute Act to allow retrenchement and closure in all establishments employing up to 300 persons without any prior permission.

• To empower the governments to exempt all industrial undertakings from all or any provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act.

• To allow deployment of contract worker/employees in all permanent jobs pertaining to regular repair/maintenance of plants, machineries and equipments and other regularly supportive jobs, loading-unloading, sweeping-cleaning, security, transport, information-technology, education and training and in all the jobs in export oriented units etc

Doing away with the system of inspection on implementation of labor laws and instead reliance on ‘self-certification’ by the employer (to be treated as prima-facie compliance of labour laws). That too is not mandatory and need not be signed by CEO of the establishment.

To reintroduce "fixed term employment" system despite announcement by the labour minister on the floor of parliament in July 2004 to rescind the notification made by the NDA government to that effect etc.

The CITU points out that on none of the above matters, the government has ever consulted the trade unions, which they are commitment-bound to do. Not only that, the government have already introduced two bills in parliament titled "The Labour Laws (Exemption from furnishing returns and maintaining registers by certain establishments) Amendment and Miscellaneous Provisions Bill 2005" and "Small and Medium Enterprises Development Bill 2005" which are also designed for freeing the employers from most of their obligations towards labor under existing labour laws and legitimise all the violations and unlawful activities.

The CITU condemns all such unscrupulous moves of making pro-employer changes in labour laws by the UPA government and calls upon the working class to build determined opposition to such retrograde moves. The CITU asserts that the working class of the country will voice their determined resolve to defeat the nefarious design of the government through countrywide strike action on September 29.