A collaborative approach can yield better results in reforming labour laws that can be implemented in the whole country, instead of different states following different norms in their own jurisdictions. That approach could also help the governments convince the trade unions to see merit in these reforms, says A K Bhattacharya.
Tamil Nadu, claiming to be the Detroit of India, has labour unrest in the automobile industry, among others.
There is no doubt that archaic labour laws governing employment of contract labour have fanned tensions at the workplace and need to be amended.
After assuming power in 2014 with a full majority of its own, the BJP-led NDA government started an ambitious process of reforming labour laws in the form of codes aimed at making the framework less cumbersome with a variety of alterations. It had planned four codes each for industrial relations, wages, social security and welfare, and occupational safety, health and working conditions. To this end, 35 central labour laws were to be converted into four codes that would have had the virtue of streamlining labour relations. But none of the proposed code Bills could be converted into a law principally because neither trade unions nor industry representatives came on board. They hold the key to India's low-growth-high unemployment paradigm but the government may struggle to push them through this time as well. Somesh Jha explains why
Employment generation and skill development along with issues like contract labour and social security are expected to dominate a conference of the Indian Labour Congress beginning in New Delhi November 23.
For 2021-22, it projected the economy to clock a growth of 10.6 per cent.
The BMS said that creating workers who do not own their industry and without permanent commitment or relationship with the industry, will be a hazard for industrial growth.
Observing that India's worsening COVID-19 situation and the strict measures to contain it have hit the economy hard, the rating agency said productive capacity has been severely disrupted since the start of the pandemic.
After having sustained huge losses due to a spate of violent protests by workers since 2011, the company is putting in place measures to prevent a repeat.
Air India has given more time to pilots to accept the revised compensation structure, which has been opposed by two pilot unions, according to a source. The decision to provide more time to pilots who are yet to sign the new contracts also comes days after Air India organised a town hall meeting with many pilots to discuss their concerns. The source said the airline has given time till the end of this week for signing the new contracts apparently due to requests from people who had not earlier accepted the revised compensation structure.
The government has introduced the Code on Wages Bill 2019 and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code Bill 2019 in Lok Sabha on July 23.
However, the growth during the next financial year would be higher at 8.1 per cent in case of a second wave of the coronavirus and bit slower at 7.9 per cent if the virus recedes and remains under control.
"In view of contracting global demand, we have to focus on domestic demand by stimulating demand in rural areas and labour intensive sectors," External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee, who is holding charge of the finance portfolio, said. "We must support the development of those sections which immediately boost growth and throw up employment opportunities." Sectors that specifically sought enhancement of bank credit were infrastructure, rural credit, consumer credit, MSME.
India's manufacturing sector continued with its robust performance in November, mainly on the back of substantial easing in price pressures and strengthening demand from clients, a monthly survey said on Friday. The strong performance of the manufacturing sector is expected to continue in 2024 as well. The seasonally adjusted S&P Global India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) rose to 56 last month from the eight-month low level of 55.5 recorded in October.
Workers' attitude is changing and they want to work more and demand more wages. They want more productivity.
Making a case for India to relax labour laws, World Bank has said such a move can generate more than eight lakh regular jobs in the manufacturing sector.
A "big spark" in the electricity pole providing power to the girder launcher preceded its collapse during the construction of a viaduct for the Samruddhi Expressway in Maharashtra's Thane district a day ago, in which at least 20 persons were killed, the police said on Wednesday.
The 13 firms under consideration had nearly a million employees as of March 2018, including contractual and temporary workforce.
'If we want real democracy, the economy itself will need to be democratised.'
Hyundai said its production was not impacted because of the labour problem at the vendor's factory.
Union Agriculture and Farmer Welfare Minister Munda, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal and Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai represented the Centre at the meeting over the farmer unions' various demands, including a law guaranteeing a minimum support price (MSP) for crops. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann also joined the meeting at the Mahatma Gandhi State Institute of Public Administration in Sector 26. The meeting started at around 8:45 pm on Thursday and lasted for around five hours.
Samajwadi Party leader Swami Prasad Maurya on Tuesday resigned as the party's national general secretary accusing the leadership of discriminating against him and not defending him over his remarks.
'The fact still remains that we will have to deliver, so the pressure is now on us to make sure we get our resources, our supplies lined up at acceptable costs.'
The employment structure of India's organised manufacturing sector has undergone substantial changes over the last decade.
Taiwan-headquartered Wistron Corporation has said that it had suffered a loss worth Rs 437.40 crore in the violence in its facility unleashed by a section of workers over salary issues at its plant in Kolar district in Karnataka.
The better performing states throw up more employment opportunities including at unskilled levels.
The biggest worry is not the shrinking of the labour market, but the collapse of good jobs.
A 10-month-old boy has been kidnapped by an unidentified woman from Mumbai's Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus, when he was sleeping with his grandmother, police said.
Air India pilots, who are up in arms against the airline's management's decision to unilaterally alter their salary structure and services conditions, on Tuesday sought Ratan Tata's intervention in resolving the issue. In a petition, signed by a little over 1,500 Air India pilots, the community alleged that the "pilots' concerns are not being heard or addressed by the current HR team". On April 17, Air India rolled out a revamped compensation structure for its pilots and cabin crew, which has since been rejected by the two pilot unions - Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) and Indian Pilots Guild (IPG) - on the grounds that the airline, in alleged violation of the labour practices, did not consult them before finalising the new contracts.
A remarkable story which helped in transforming a bureaucratic organization, to a customer centric organization. This experience may inspire several government / private organizations to modify or adopt digitisation to transform their business, notes Professor N Ravichandran (retd).
'We are developing infrastructure on the mountains and deploying the troops on hill borders in such a way that it is ensuring the safety of the people there.'
Nearly a month after a three-year-old baby girl was allegedly stolen by an unidentified man when she was sleeping with her family at the Chhattrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai, the Railway Police on Friday released a photograph and CCTV footage to track down the culprit. According to the police, the accused came to the railway station on June 10 at around 2 am and took away the baby girl sleeping with her parents, who are contract labourers hailing from Vidharbha region.
Only one in four workers in Karnataka receive a salary, the lowest among the four industrialised states of India, a Business Standard analysis of the latest annual Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) data shows. While 31.6 per cent workers in Gujarat receive regular wages (or salaries), followed by Tamil Nadu (30.3 per cent) and Maharashtra (29.4 per cent), only 25.7 per cent workers in Karnataka receive the same. The figure stands at 21.5 per cent at the national level, according to the 2021-22 PLFS data.
Manufacturing activities in India fell to a five-month low in September as new orders rose at a softer pace, which tempered production growth, a monthly survey said on Tuesday. The seasonally adjusted S&P Global India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index (PMI) fell to 57.5 in September, down from 58.6 in August -- the lowest in five months. The September PMI data pointed to an improvement in overall operating conditions for the 27th straight month.
A panel of Union ministers held a fourth round of talks with farmer leaders in Chandigarh on Sunday over their demands, including a legal guarantee of MSP, as thousands of protesting farmers camped at the Punjab-Haryana border.
Contradictory reports have been making the rounds regarding the controversy surrounding the Kaiga incident of 55 workers falling ill after drinking contaminated water at the nuclear plant. While the Kaiga authorities claim that a list of names of casual contract labourers have been submitted to the police, the police on the other hand have said that no formal complaint has been lodged with them as yet.
Despite high headline numbers, the output of one-third of the segments in the manufacturing sector in August stood below even that in the same month in 2011-12, when the new index of industrial production (IIP) series started. This is despite the fact that manufacturing grew 9.3 per cent in the month, driving up IIP growth to a 14-month high of 10.3 per cent. Part of it is due to the devastation of these product categories by lockdowns induced by Covid waves and subdued export conditions, while part of it needs to be assessed further.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances