States lag behind in publishing draft rules for all four Labour Codes

Only 15 states and union territories have so far pre-published draft rules for all the four Labour Codes passed by Parliament. Six states and two union territories have not published draft rules for even a single Labour Code.

The Parliament has passed the Code on Wages in 2019 and the three other Codes – Industrial Relations, Social Security and Occupation Safety, Health and Working Conditions – in 2020 but the Codes have not been implemented yet as the rules are not notified by the Centre.

According to the Economic Survey tabled by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Parliament, 26 states and union territories have pre-published draft rules on Code on Wages, 22 on Industrial Relations Code, 20 on Code on Social Security and 17 on Occupation Safety, Health and Working Conditions. The Centre pre-published the draft Rules for all four Codes.

As on January 11, the survey showed, the 16 states and union territories that have published the draft rules for all the four Codes are Arunachal Pradesh, Bihar, Goa, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Manipur, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Punjab and Chandigarh.

Karnataka has published draft rules for Codes on wages and industrial relations.

Also read; Four-day workweek, new salary structure likely to be implemented in India under new labour codes

However, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Sikkim, Nagaland and Meghalaya as well as union territories of Andaman and Nicobar Islands as well as Dadra Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu have not prepared the draft for even a single Code.

The Code on Wages mandates that the basic pay of an employee will be 50 per cent of the total salary or cost-to-company (CTC), which could result in a decrease in take-home salary while rise in retirement benefits.

The other Codes remove stringent conditions on the winding up of companies and ease restrictions on firing from 100 to 300 employees by firms without government sanction, which the government believes will attract more investment and job creation.

According to the Survey, the new Codes are “in tune with the changing labour market trends and at the same time accommodating the minimum wage requirement and welfare needs of the unorganised sector workers, including the self-employed and migrant workers, within the framework of legislation”.

Trade unions have been protesting against the Codes, saying that they are anti-workers and prepared keeping the interests of employers alone.

Check out the latest DH videos here: