Employers demanded suspension of almost all labour laws barring a few for the next two-three years to help the industry come out of the present crisis arising out of the Covid-19 pandemic.
In an online class with Union work serve Santosh Kumar Gangwar on Friday, businesses hailed the requirement for raising day by day working hours to 12 hours from 8 hours. An official statement issued after the meeting said suggestions given by representatives of the employers’ organizations include the need for suspension of “the labour laws for the next two-three years, except the provisions like minimum wages, bonus and statutory dues, to help the industry to come out of the present crisis”.
Prior in the week, Uttar Pradesh proclaimed a law to exclude enterprises from different work laws for a very long time to restore financial exercises.
Bosses additionally mentioned the legislature to give a fitting bundle to ventures so the business is supportable and there is no loss of openings for work. Likewise on their approach list was the requirement for the unwinding of the arrangements of the Industrial Disputes Act to regard the lockdown time frame as lay-off.
Suspension of Labour Laws to save the jobs and business
Keeping in view the difficulties being faced by the industry and liquidity crisis, wages paid to workers may be covered under expenses under CSR funds, they said and demanded that the maximum permissible limit for workers’ attendance in workplaces should be enhanced to 50% from 33% now.
Power supply to the industry at subsidized rates and reduction in the social security cost for both employees and employers were also on their demand list.
Not happy with the zone demarcation based on Covid-19 cases, they demanded that there should be only two zones – containment and non-containment – to facilitate easy movement of workers and goods. They requested the government to allow all activities in non-containment zones.
Criticizing industries’ demands, labour expert KR Shyam Sundar said, “The virus of planned labour reforms following Madhya Pradesh and then Uttar Pradesh is progressively offering more flexibility to employers and the virus is fast spreading to various states, and now it has reached to the national level to extract maximum labour flexibility form the government, which is worse than the COVID virus.”
Leading industry bodies, including CII, Ficci, and Assocham, took part in the webinar.
