‘Anti-worker, pro-employer’: Trade unions condemn ‘unilateral’ implementation of labour codes

After the Union government notified the implementation of the four labour codes on Friday, 10 central trade unions described them as being “anti-worker and pro-employer”.

In a statement, they condemned the “blatantly unilateral implementation” of the four labour codes, alleging that it was a “deceptive fraud” that had been committed by the Union government against the working people of the country.

The Parliament had cleared the Code on Wages in 2019 and the rest of the three codes – Industrial Relations Code, Code on Social Security, and Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code – in 2020.

After their implementation, the four codes replaced 29 labour laws.

The Bharatiya Janata Party-led Union government has claimed that the reform is aimed at extending coverage of statutory protection, including need-based minimum wages, non-hazardous working conditions and universal social security entitlements, to platform workers.

However, critics have argued that the codes fail to extend social protection to the vast majority of informal sector workers, including migrant workers, self-employed workers and home-based workers.

Trade unions had in 2020 demonstrated against the codes, stating that they allow employers to hire and fire workers more easily, arguing that it has no safeguards for workers, make it harder for workers to negotiate better terms and wages with employers and make strikes more difficult.

The statement on Friday was released by the Indian National Trade Union Congress, All India Trade Union Congress, Hind Mazdoor Sabha, Centre of Indian Trade Unions, All India United Trade Union Centre, Trade Union Coordination Centre, Self Employed Women's Association, All India Central Council of Trade Unions, Labour Progressive Federation and the United Trade Union Congress

The central trade unions stated that the “arbitrary and undemocratic notification” on the labour codes on Friday defied “all democratic ethos and has wrecked the character of welfare state of India to rubbles”.

They added that the unions and independent industrial federations had been resisting the implementation of the “draconian” codes since the day they were enacted after repealing the existing 29 labour laws.

“In-spite of the stiff resistance, the ruling [Bharatiya Janata Party] regime in the Union government, dizzied with the victory in Bihar elections has felt super empowered to make effective the four labour codes from today…” read the statement.

The National Democratic Alliance, which includes the BJP, won the Bihar Assembly polls on November 14, bagging 202 of the 243 seats. A party or an alliance needs 122 seats in the 243-member Assembly to form the government. The Opposition Mahagathbandhan won 35 seats.

The central trade unions, in their statement, also said that they had called for the convening of the Indian Labour Conference and had also urged the Union government to scrap the labour codes during another meeting convened on November 13.

The Indian Labour Conference is a consultative forum for dialogue between the government, employers and workers on labour and employment-related issues.

The Union government, however, remained “obstinately unresponsive”, the central trade unions claimed.

Denouncing the notification issued on Friday as “undemocratic”, the unions said that the “lethal assault on the working people will be confronted with the fiercest and most United resistance in history”.

They added: “The CTUs in one voice term the codes as genocidal attacks on the lives and livelihoods of workers seeking to impose virtual slavery and snatching away every right and entitlements of the workers. The codes, if implemented will extinguish the hopes, faith and aspirations of the entire generations to come.”

The unions called for a protest across the country on November 26 against the implementation of labour codes. They also called on all their members to wear black badges in their workplaces to mark their protest.

According to the statement, the notification on the codes, which came amid a deepening unemployment crisis and rising inflation, was nothing short of a declaration of war on the working masses.

“The Union government in cahoots with its capitalist cronies is attempting to take the country back to the exploitative era of master-servant relationship,” it said. “The Platform of Central Trade Unions sends a serious warning to the government that the working people of India will put up a formidable fight till the labour codes are withdrawn.”

The Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) Liberation on Friday said that the notification on the implementation of the four codes was issued “despite strong opposition from workers and the toiling masses”.

On social media, the party stated that the codes were “essentially tools that codify modern slavery and exploitation for the benefit and profiteering of big businesses and corporate interests, all under the banner of ‘Ease of Doing Business'.”

The codes dilute industrial safety compliance, wage and welfare requirements, and “effectively dismantle hard-earned rights of workers, including the right to form associations and take collective action”, it added.

The codes also pushed a large section of the working class into conditions resembling bondage and paving the way for further informalisation and contractualisation of labour, said the CPI(ML) Liberation.

“The objective and purpose of the four Labour Codes are not reforms, but to snatch away the rights and safety of workers in the name of facilitating corporate profiteering,” the statement read.

It added: “The Labour Codes, along with the recent draft Shram Shakti Niti 2025, reflect the regressive and anti-labour character of the Modi regime, which treats workers and the toiling masses of this country as expendable and attempts to push them into conditions of servitude”.

The CPI(ML) Liberation called for the immediate withdrawal of “these arbitrary and anti-people labour codes” and demanded the convening of the Indian Labour Conference, which it said had been kept in abeyance by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi regime for the past ten years.

Shram Shakti Niti is policy that seeks to connect every worker in the country, whether formal, informal, gig, or migrant, to a unified digital ecosystem that manages employment, benefits, and workplace safety.

Source: Scroll
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