ILO acts upon a plea by 10 central trade unions objecting to the ordinances proposed to temporarily scrap labour laws in Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat, along with executive orders issued by at least 10 states to increase the daily working limit to 12 hours from eight hours, along with other labour law changes.
Labour law changes for three years may not be enough as it takes a couple of years for factories to build and operations at a proper scale start only in the third or fourth year.
'If the business doesn't recover in next 6-10 months, there might be situation where there would be some lay-offs...That may be required for survival and to ensure livelihood to millions of people.'
Backed by China's Tencent and Prosus NV, Swiggy has around 8,000 employees.
The hospitality and tourism sector is among the worst hit because of the pandemic, and is unlikely to recover any time soon as people continue to be cautious of going out in a crowded places.
There was no announcement from the government on guaranteeing a minimum basic income, which is the need of the hour. The announcements on portability of ration cards and affordable rental housing to workers are for the long and medium terms. Migrant workers need immediate relief.
The Karnataka government is also expected to follow suit and withdraw its decision to raise the variable DA.
11 categories of industries will be exempt from the Madhya Pradesh Industrial Relations (MPIR) Act of 1961. This includes textile, leather, cement, iron and steel, electrical goods, sugar, electricity, public motor transport, engineering including manufacture of motor vehicles, among others.
Top Indian IT services companies - TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL Tech - have said that they would continue to hire freshers through campus interviews, though lateral hiring will be mostly on exception basis.
'Just as coronavirus has come to us from China, this disease is also coming from that country.' 'India is a strong democracy and you cannot compromise on labour laws in this manner.' 'These changes will be challenged in court.'
Unlike the other Bharatiya Janata Party-led governments, Assam has not proposed doing away with most labour laws for a certain number of years. Instead it has proposed introducing fixed-term employment to help both workers and industries, and seeks to take more firms out of the ambit of laws governing factories and contract workers.
Apart from this, employers may be allowed to deduct EPF contributions only on the basic pay of up to Rs 15,000, even if the employees' basic pay is above this ceiling. While on one hand this will allow companies to lower their wage bills, employees can also get a higher salary in hand.
The ministry of home affairs has made the use of Aarogya Setu app mandatory for all employees, both private and public, and pinned the responsibility for compliance on the head of respective organisations.
The portal, which has been tentatively named by the labour and employment ministry as the National Portal for COVID-19 Affected Unorganised Migrant Workers, will gather the details of all the unorganised sector workers who are stranded in relief camps, residential or industrial clusters.
WhatsApp limited the number of times a frequently forwarded message can be sent further to only one chat at a time. This resulted in 70% plunge in viral forwarded messages globally, WhatsApp told GoI.
The exponential number of downloads can be attributed to a call by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking people to have the app on their mobiles, combined with the government's push for downloading of the app through other channels, reports Neha Alawadhi.
Parliamentary standing committee on labour, led by Biju Janata Dal MP Bhartruhari Mahtab, has said in its report that it is unjustifiable for owners to pay workers' wages during natural calamities.
Given that people have been reluctant to order cooked food - which worsened due to a couple of cases of delivery personnel testing positive for COVID-19 - food delivery platforms have included grocery delivery as part of their services.
Ensuring health insurance for all workers would be major challenge for the industry that is already grappling with cash crunch, and the government should have borne the cost.
Daily wagers are running out of resources, including ration and cash, and the state governments might not be able to sustain their needs for a longer period of time, given the lockdown has already been extended until May 3.
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