‘Hire-and-fire future’: Kharge slams Modi govt over Labour Codes, calls them biggest blow to workers since Independence

Kharge claimed the industrial relations have been shifted from 'worker rights' to 'corporate flexibility'.

New Delhi: Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge on Monday attacked the Modi government for fully operationalising the four Labour Codes by notifying final rules after "cowardly" waiting for the Assembly elections to be over and said these codes are the "greatest setback" for workers' rights since Independence.

For crores of Indian workers, Kharge said in a statement, these "anti-worker" codes promise a future of hire-and-fire policies, contract employment and limited space for unionisation and are being implemented without any consultation.

"These codes, which benefit only the Prime Minister's industrialist friends, are the greatest setback for workers' rights since independence," he said about the rules notified on May 8 and 9. 

He said the Congress is committed to its five-point 'Shramik Nyay' agenda -- restoration of MGNREGA and its extension to urban areas, national minimum wage at Rs 400 per day, including for MGNREGA, Right to Health law that will provide universal health coverage of Rs 25 lakh; comprehensive social security for all unorganised workers, a commitment to stop contractualisation of employment in core government functions and to review the Modi government's dilution of labour laws.

Kharge said the entire wage architecture in the Code on Wages 2019 is "not worker-centric but corporate-centric".

He said the Modi government has dropped the criteria for calculating minimum wage, which used calorie intake, clothing needs, rent, fuel costs among others as benchmark.

The minimum wage will no longer be set according to a set of guidelines and norms but according to the "arbitrary whims" of the Modi government, resulting in lower minimum wages, he said, adding that minimum wage protections exclude agricultural and domestic help.

He warned that the new burden on additional costs and digital compliance on MSMEs pose a survival challenge. 

He also found fault with the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020 making workplace safety a cost of business rather than a non-negotiable duty. He claimed that the decriminalisation framework allows safety violations to be settled through monetary payment rather than criminal prosecution. 

Kharge was of the view that the gig workers were neither recognised as employees nor given full protection in the Social Security Code 2020. "Social security has been turned into a 'data entry exercise' instead of a constitutional right. (Around) 90% of the country's workers are being given an identity card, but they get no legal guarantees or actual benefits," he said.

On Industrial Relations Code 2020, he said the industrial relations have been shifted from 'worker rights' to 'corporate flexibility'.