2 categories of staff in new labour law opposed

A parliamentary committee has disapproved different ‘welfare facilities’ envisaged in a new labour law pending since July 2019 for employees and workers and sought removal of such discrimination from the Occupational safety, health and working conditions code bill. The Bill seeks to subsume 13 existing laws and provides for the welfare of the staff in establishments with more than 10 workers, except at mines and docks where it applies to even one worker.

The labour ministry told the committee that the workers were a ‘subset’ of employees, a reasoning which was not acceptable to the committee headed by Biju Janata Dal MP Bhratruhari Mahtab. Coverage under the law would entitle workers to safety and health provisions. The Bill provides for bathing places and locker rooms as extra facilities for employees but not to workers, while both employees and workers are entitled to facilities like sitting arrangements, canteen, ambulance and restroom. When the panel questioned the logic behind the separate provisions, the ministry said workers were a subset of employees. Workers, it said, did not include those in administrative, managerial and supervisory ranks who earned more than Rs 15,000 a month; so separate facilities had been proposed for the two categories. The House committee said it was “not convinced with the reasoning adduced by the Ministry for prescribing different welfare facilities for employees and workers.” “Prudence therefore demands that such anomalies have to be removed so as to dispel any impression of misgivings,” the committee said in a report tabled in Parliament early this week. The bill proposes single registration for an establishment instead of multiple registrations. Presently, six of the 13 labour laws provide for separate registrations requiring an establishment to register with separate authorities before they can start operations.