Govt defers next week’s international labour meet

NEWDELHI: The union ministry of labour and employment has deferred the upcoming 47th Indian Labour Conference (ILC) that was scheduled to be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday.

The government did not specify any reasons for the decision, and did not respond to questions from HT asking why the conference had been deferred.

The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), the labour and trade union arm of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), had threatened to pull out of the ILC unless its demands for protecting the labour sector were met by February 25.

The RSS affiliate had demanded bringing contractual workers under the social security net, hiking salaries of aangan- wadi and Asha workers and economic policies that would create more permanent jobs.

It also wanted an enhancement in the EPS pension from ₹1,000 to ₹5,000 and providing special funds to sick PSUS, which can be revived.

Claiming to have 4,700 trade unions and 44 national federations affiliated to it, the BMS has differed with the Centre over some of its economic policies and labelled the union budget as “labour unfriendly”.

The ILC, which has representatives from the government, industry and trade unions, was expected to discuss issues of social security for all; labour law amendments, reforms and codification; employment generation with a special focus on women and a transition to formal employment.

“We have been informed the conference has been deferred, no reasons were cited and no fresh dates have been announced. It is a very important event... but the ministry has not organised an ILC since 2015,” BMS president CK Saji Narayanan said.

On whether the BMS’S threat to pull out and protest outside the venue could be a reason, Narayanan said he would not attribute reasons, but “the absence of the largest trade unions at the meeting would have been noticed.”

Tapan Sen, general secretary of Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) said they were informed that the event was deferred since the PM is not available.

“We believe that because of the mood in the trade union camps, the government had decided to defer the meeting.

“On the 15th of this month we met the Labour minister and informed him we may have to rethink on attending, because whatever decisions are taken at the ILC, the government does the opposite of it,” Sen said.