Labor an important part
of any industry, is presently under scanner with few states in India reviving
the old laws on labor. Three states which are doing some overhaul are
Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra. The labor laws are in the concurrent
list of the Constitution - meaning, subjects on which both Centre and state can
legislate. In 2011, there were 370 industrial disputes West Bengal on top of
the list and Andhra Pradesh with least disputes. The majority of disputes were
related to wages and salary followed by indiscipline. Gujarat saw a majority of
production loss of nearly 51.3 crore and all states together nearly production
loss worth Rs 422 crore.
The Union ministry has
started work on clubbing all the 44 labor laws into five major categories —
industrial relations, wages, social security, working conditions and welfare
cess. These were one of the
recommendations of the second National Labor Commission. The four major acts
which are under review are:
(1) The Contract
Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 (2) The Industrial
Disputes Act, 1947 (3) The Factories Act, 1948 (4) The Apprentices Act, 1961
The
Rajasthan Government has recently enacted an amendment to the Industrial
Disputes Act, allowing factories employing up to 300 workers to retrench these
without taking permission. Earlier, only factories which employed up to 100
workers were allowed to do so. At the central level, the Act still allows only
factories employing up to 100 workers to retrench employees without taking
government permission. The Rajasthan government did not begin with an ordinance
- it brought the proposed changes in the form of Bills to the state Assembly.
On November 7, 2014 the President of India has approved the changes.
On
September 22, 2014 the Madhya Pradesh cabinet had Okayed amendments to 20 labor
laws and major among them are the Madhya Pradesh Industrial Employment
(Standing Orders) Act, Trade Union Act and Madhya Pradesh Labor Welfare Fund. Besides
amendments to the Acts mentioned earlier, other changes involve the Building
and Other Construction Workers (BOCW) Act, the BOCW Workers Cess Act, the Child
Labor Act, Inter-State Migrant Workmen and Motor Transport Workers Act.
Maharashtra Government is also
thinking to make changes to 3 labor laws namely industrial disputes act,
factories act and contract labor act. It has proposed that units with 300 plus
workers need Government clearance to retrench staff or shut down. Nearly 95% of
its industrial units will be allowed to follow new rules if it gets assent of
the President. Its total industrial product was worth Rs. 2, 267 billion in
2013-14. As per new law safety rules are mandatory for larger units (20
workers) compared to current strength of 10 workers. Labor standard regulation
to apply to units with 50 plus workers, instead of 20 plus.