Why in news?
NITI Aayog pitches for labour reforms in its 'Strategy for New India @75' document.
What does it recommend?
- Codifying labour laws - In 2016, there were 44 labour laws under the statute of the Central government.
- More than 100 laws fall under the jurisdiction of state governments.
- Thus, the government should quickly finish codifying India’s labour laws, while simplifying or modifying those that apply to the formal sector.
- The National Policy for Domestic Workers should also be brought in at the earliest.
- Keeping women in the workforce - The government should ensure that employers adhere to the Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017, and the Sexual Harassment of Women at Work Place (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act.
- It is also important to implement these legislations in the informal sector, and make sure that skills training programmes and apprenticeships include women.
- Employment data - Data collection for the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PFLS) of households must be completed on schedule and data is disseminated by 2019.
- The government should conduct an annual enterprise survey using the GST Network (GSTN) as the sample frame for this.
- Along with it, administrative data from EPFO, ESIC and the NPS could be used, to track regularly the state of employment while adjusting for the formalisation of the workforce.
- Workers’ welfare - The government must mandatorily comply with the national floor-level minimum wage.
- Also, the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 should be expanded to cover all jobs, besides enforcing the payment of wages through cheque or Aadhaar-enabled payments for all.
- Social security and working conditions – There must be a compulsory registration of all establishments to ensure better monitoring of occupational safety.
- A comprehensive occupational health and safety legislation based on risk assessment and employer-worker cooperation should be enacted.
- Labour inspection system should be made transparent by allowing online complaints and putting in place a standardised mechanism.
- Also, labour dispute resolution system should be overhauled, by strengthening labour courts or tribunals to help resolve disputes quickly and fairly.
- Skills and apprenticeships - According to the India Skill Report 2018, only 47% of those coming out of higher educational institutions are employable.
- Thus, forming the Labour Market Information System (LMIS) is important for identifying skill shortages, training needs and new employment opportunities.
- Through LMIS, the government should ensure the wider use of apprenticeship programmes by all enterprises, which may require enhancing the government stipend.
What are the concerns?
- NITI Aayog is stuck on a misguided notion that labour flexibility will boost investment, thereby ignoring skilling and other factors.
- The mere amendments in labour laws have neither succeeded in attracting big investments, boost to industrialisation or to job creation.
- According to the Ease of Doing Business Index (2014), only a little over one-tenth of the respondent firms in India perceived labour regulations as a major constraint.
- Hence, rapid industrialisation, growth in investments and job creation would ultimately depend on –
- Development of infrastructure
- Stable law and order
- Availability of skilled manpower
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- Boost in skill upgradation
- Also, extension of maternity benefit to 26 weeks under the amended Maternity Benefit Act has adversely affected employment prospects.
- This is because the employers hesitate to hire female workforce, especially in the case of start-ups.
- To overcome this, the government has recently proposed to subsidise wages of female workers earning less than Rs. 15,000.
- However, it has little to say on the gender composition of committees and institutions created under the labour laws to enforce the measure.
- Also, trade union recognition law is still absent in most States and at the national level.
- Thus, the NITI Aayog needs to really retool itself to be able to come up with a balanced and conceptually consistent labour market and industrial relations strategy, to deliver quality jobs and inclusive growth.
Source: Business Line, The Wire
