Re-orienting India's labour laws

THE AMENDMENTS TO the Trade Unions Act (1926) made by Parliament marks the commencement of a long process that lies ahead in modifying India's labour laws. The recent amendments, coming as they do after over a decade's debate, serve two purposes. On the first and more immediate count, they are an attempt to correct long-felt systemic weaknesses in the functioning of trade unions. The move to raise the threshold membership level for registration of trade unions and the stiffer restriction placed on the influence wielded by persons who are not engaged in the industry concerned - commonly referred to as `outside leadership' - form the substantive part of the amendment. On the second and more important count, the message behind the amendments is that the legislative approach towards the sensitive issue of labour law reforms will be calibrated; aim at lowering the level of resistance to change and attempt to widen the support in favour of future legislations. That the changes to the Act have been made with an effort to strike a right chord among the country's crucial constituency of workmen is apparent in the explanation that retired or retrenched workers are not to be construed as outsiders.

Yet, if the opposition to altering the country's labour laws is to be overcome effectively, it is imperative that the workforce gains the confidence that its interests will not be compromised. The Government, for its part, should work towards arriving at as broad a consensus as possible before it attempts further reforms in labour laws. Awaiting the report of the Second National Commission on Labour - expected later this year - before plunging ahead with more alterations to the existing laws will no doubt help in managing the arduous task ahead. With the agenda for labour law reforms spelt out by the Union Finance Minister, Mr. Yashwant Sinha, it is important that the issues that relate to national economic performance and labour are placed under the spotlight in the nation's public discourse. Having resisted change for over a decade, the country's trade unions will now have to attune themselves to new issues and fresh challenges that are bound to crop up in the years ahead. The decline in employment growth in the organised sector and the simultaneous

increase in casual work during the past decade is an important pointer to what economic restructuring means to the labour market. It is against this backdrop that the proposed amendments to the Industrial Disputes Act and the Contract Labour Act and the far-reaching recommendations made by the Planning Commission's Task Force on Employment Opportunities aim at freeing industrial units from existing legal rigidities.

With all the forebodings of difficult times on the employment front, it should be the responsibility of the nation's political and labour leadership to ensure that the course corrections that are to be made do not result in a legal structure that substantially dilutes minimal levels of protection for the country's workforce. It is also imperative that the Government comes out with a comprehensive and workable social safety net. A thorough reworking of the existing systems of social security - which are more attuned to a setting where the public sector occupies the commanding heights of the economy - should be an ideal starting point for such an exercise. The changing times call for solutions that are brave as well as sensitive to the long-term interests of a labour-surplus economy. If India is to derive the most from economic restructuring the increasing sense of inevitability that underlines the present approach to labour reforms should be replaced by a sharp redefinition of roles by both Governments and organisations that represent the interests of labour.

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