How the New Labour Codes Weaken Job Security for Labourers?

New Delhi: India is witnessing widespread protests against the four labour codes pushed through unilaterally by the BJP Government. The codes now in force are the Code on Wages, 2019, the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, the Code on Social Security, 2020, and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020.

These laws effectively scrap 29 earlier labour provisions that workers had secured through long struggles. Those provisions had offered protections related to salary, working hours, social security, industrial safety, inspections, and collective bargaining. The new codes, however, are widely seen as being tilted towards employers. The government’s claim that these reforms will encourage investment and create jobs is facing strong challenge, with critics arguing that the real motive is to attract capital by stripping workers of hard-won rights.

The codes also curb the right to strike and criminalise collective action, making worker mobilisation far more difficult. With the backing of state machinery, long-standing labour rights are being weakened to suit dominant economic interests.

Except for the BMS, all major labour organisations have united in opposing the new codes. When the Centre attempted to implement the farm laws, the country saw a historic uprising. A similar mass mobilisation is now expected over the labour codes.

Key anti-labour elements within the new codes include:

• The threshold for labour law coverage has been raised, excluding a large section of establishments. Earlier, factories using power with more than ten workers and those not using power with more than twenty workers were covered. These limits have now been increased to twenty and forty respectively.

• The Industrial Relations Code will push nearly 70 percent of industrial establishments and 74 percent of workers into a contract system. Previously, establishments with 100 or more workers needed government permission for layoffs or retrenchment. Now, this applies only to units with more than 300 workers, and the government can raise this limit further through notifications.

• The 1946 Standing Orders defining service and wage conditions will no longer apply to establishments with up to 300 workers. The government has also been given powers to override provisions in the new law and frame rules that dilute statutory protections.

• Under the guise of public interest, any industrial establishment can be exempted from the Industrial Relations Code. During the COVID period, the BJP government in Madhya Pradesh used this extreme clause to exempt all newly established factories from every labour law.

• The codes remove the concept of permanent employment and introduce ‘fixed-term employment’, where workers are hired for limited periods without the guarantee of meaningful social security benefits.

• The Occupational Safety Code does not adequately define safety standards or social security schemes, leaving workers without meaningful guarantees of safety or improved working conditions.

• The right to organise and form unions is weakened. The Industrial Relations Code does not set clear criteria for recognising unions. The long-standing demand for secret ballot recognition has also been ignored, and the right to collective bargaining is diluted.

• With Standing Orders no longer applicable, unified service conditions within establishments will vanish. Most workers will be contract or fixed-term employees, further weakening trade union activities.

• The right to strike is severely restricted. Workers must give a 14-day notice before striking, and strikes are banned during conciliation proceedings. Workers may strike only seven days after conciliation ends.

• Once adjudication begins, strikes are banned for three months. In essential services, six weeks’ notice is required. These provisions effectively deny workers their fundamental right to strike.