clra Emerging Trends -III

V.Sounder Rajan has sent you a message.
Date: 1/31/2012
Subject: CLRA Emerging trends-III
Dear Friends


In continuation of the Summary Record of Discussion of the 44th Session of the Standing Labour Committee held on 17th October, 2011 at New Delhi under the Chairmanship of Shri Mallikarjun Kharge, Union Minister of Labour and Employment, Government of India. The national level tripartite meeting was attended by senior level functionaries of Central Trade Union Organizations, Employers‟ Organizations, State Governments and Central Ministries and Departments.This part has many important issues relevant to CLRA which were discussed.The need for rationalizing the working Hours was taken up by Shri Tapan Sen, General Secretary, Centre of Indian Trade Unions.

Shri Tapan Sen, General Secretary, Centre of Indian Trade Unions expressed his concern over the issue of safety at workplace and referred to the horrendous incident of 30 workers being burnt alive at a factory at Peeragarhi. He remarked that the latest (66th round) National Sample Survey Data (2009-10) signalled the consistently deteriorating trend of employment generation potential of the economy despite higher rate of GDPgrowth. Therefore, he suggested that a pattern of “jobless growth” has deeply set in by the neoliberal economic policy regime and structural changes need to be forced upon through appropriate policy interventions. Giving examples from the manufacturing and service sector, he claimed that „12 hours working‟ has become the order and in some cases there is no payment for overtime. Therefore, he stressed upon the need for enforcement of „8 hour working‟ norm and a preparatory survey to be undertaken by VVGNLI to study the impact of stringent enforcement of eight hour working on employment generation. Further he emphasized on the need for employment generation to be structurally and organically linked with the assessment GDP and the periodicity of both employment and GDP statistics must be made same and simultaneous. He also gave valuable suggestions regarding the publication of employment figures quarterly and also the quarterly publication of GDP trends. Such an endeavour, he pointed out would be the best method as well as an instrument to acid test the very efficacy of the economic policies as far as employment generation is concerned.

Shri Michael Dias, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry suggested rationalization of labour laws in the context of unorganized sector. In his view, the issues pertaining to contract labour needs to be addressed in-depth, possibly after receiving the report from V.V.Giri National Labour Institute. In this regard, he fully supported and endorsed that a complete data on contract labour be made available and urged the need for a white paper to be brought out by the Ministry of Labour and Employment at the earliest. He considered the issues of enhancing employability and employment as critical ones which needed serious attention from all stakeholders and should be a part of agenda at the next ILC.

Shri P. Parijat Singh, Labour Minister, Government of Manipur mentioned the following points:

(ii) A Tripartite State Advisory Board has been constituted under section 4 of the Contract Labour (Regulation & Abolition) Act. Status of the implementation of the Act in the State is being reviewed as per the recommendations of the 43rd Session of the ILC. The Act will be amended to increase the rates of fees for registration of establishments, fees for grant of licences to the contractors and security deposits for grant of licences.

..To be continued>>>

With Regards

V.Sounder Rajan
VS Rajan Associates,
Advocates & Notaries & Legal Consultants
No.27, Ist Floor, Singapore Plaza,
No.164, Linghi Chetty Street,
Chennai - 600 001.
E-mail: rajanassociates@eth.net,
Off : 044-42620864, 044-65874684,
Mobile : 9840142164