The Gujarat Assembly on Wednesday passed a Bill to amend The Factories Act, 1948, providing for increasing the daily working hours to 12 with a cap of 48 hours in a week. The Bill also stipulates the condition of written consent from a worker in this regard.
The amendment Bill has been brought by the BJP government to replace an ordinance it promulgated in July this year.
As per the Bill, if a worker works for 48 hours in four days, then he will be entitled to two days’ paid leave in the week.
The legislation provides for overtime wages at twice the ordinary rate and raises the quarterly cap on overtime hours from the existing 75 to 125 hours, subject to the worker’s written consent.
The Bill also proposes to allow women to work in factories between 7 pm and 6 am with 16 conditions that includes a woman worker’s written consent. State Industries Minister Balvantsinh Rajput said this provision will give an opportunity to a woman factory worker to earn more if she is willing and capable.
Hailing the Bill, Rajput said “it is a statement of Gujarat about its intention”, adding that “Gujarat is ready for the future… This important Bill will protect the workers’ interests while giving an impetus to the industrial activities”.
The Opposition benches, including the MLAs of the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), slammed the amendment Bill.
Congress MLA Shailesh Parmar said it was not clear if the government has brought the Bill “out of love for the industrialists or out of feelings for labourers”. He said the Congress would have supported the Bill if the working hours in factories were reduced to seven in a day.
AAP MLA Gopal Italia charged that the amendment Bill was brought in support of those who “exploit labourers”.
What laws govern factory work hours?
Labour is in the Concurrent List of the Constitution, so both the Centre and states could make laws on the subject. In all, there are over 100 state laws and 40 central laws regulating various aspects of labour including resolution of industrial disputes, working conditions, and wages.
In a paper, PRS Legislative Research points out that The Factories Act, 1948 allows the state governments to exempt factories from its provisions under certain conditions.
States have used two different provisions of the Factories Act to change work hours. These provisions include three-month exemption in case of a public emergency (Section 5), and exemption to allow factories to deal with an exceptional amount of work (Section 65).
Which states have raised work hours?
PRS gives the examples of at least 12 states including Assam, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Uttarakhand, which have used the “public emergency” exemption to increase work hours in factories.
A public emergency is defined as a grave emergency where there is a threat to national security by war, external aggression or internal disturbance.
Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh had also used the public emergency exemption to increase work hours during the Covid-19 pandemic but withdrew their notifications after it was challenged in their respective high courts by labour activists.
What happened during the pandemic?
During the Covid-19 pandemic, several states brought various changes in labour laws in apparent bids to boost their economic activity. The most significant changes in this regard were announced by the BJP-ruled states including UP, MP and Gujarat. Some other states like Rajasthan and Punjab, which were then ruled then by the Congress, and Odisha, then ruled by the Biju Janata Dal (BJD), made some changes too.
MP exempted employers from some obligations under various labour laws like Factories Act, Madhya Pradesh Industrial Relations Act and Industrial Disputes Act, and Contract Labour Act for a period of 1,000 days, i.e. nearly 3 years. This gives employers the freedom to hire and fire, and contractors not needing a licence to supply labour of up to 49 persons.
UP gave a 3-year exemption to all factories and establishments engaged in manufacturing from all labour laws, except provisions of Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act and those relating to employment of children and women.
These measures were characterised by Radhicka Kapoor of the ICRIER (Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations) as “creating an enabling environment for exploitation”.
Several critics accused the states of changing labour laws to divest workers of their bargaining power and causing erosion of their social security.
Trade unions’ pushback
A slew of trade unions opposed the changes made to labour laws during the pandemic period. Ten central trade unions — including the Congress-affiliated Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), CPI-linked All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) and CPM-affiliated Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) — registered an initial complaint with the International Labour Organisation (ILO), terming these moves as “an attack on human and labour rights”, asking for the ILO’s intervention over “the extremely precarious and regressive moves” for the working class in the country. The RSS-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) also directed its state units to oppose the changes in labour laws.