labour Minister Raj Paliwar on Thursday rebuffed the Opposition’s charges of playing with the interests of labour employed on contract basis and affirmed that the act serves two purposes at the same time — protection of rights of labour and protection to small contractors from red tapism by limiting the scope of ‘inspector raj’.
The ‘Contractual labour Amendment Act, 2015 and Contract labour (Regulation & Abolition-1948) Jharkhand Amendment Act’ was passed on December 18 amid the din that stalled proceedings on the very next day as well. The principal opposition, Jharkhand Mukti Morcha, had alleged that the State Government has compromised labourers’ interests and strengthened hands of businessmen.
“Those who are opposing this act are an obstacle in the Government’s efforts. They are opposed to the State government’s effort to bring more industries and youths get. We want that the youths get job but they want to drive youths towards extremism by opposing this act,” said Pailwar.
Entities that employ 20-50 or more labourers employed on contract basis or have used services of labour on contract basis will come under the purview of the act. The act would be applicable to contractors who employ 20-50 labourers and have employed labour on contract for any number of days.
Paliwar added, “Small contractors had to leave offices and were overly concerned about compliance to various provision of the act. They had made rounds to Government offices a number of times. So, considering the circumstances we amended the act in their interest”.
Officials of the department of labour, Employment and Training emphasised that the Act dating back to 1970 has been amended to relieve the vicious cycle of checks and balances besides, the alleged abuse of businessmen. The amendments were claimed to have brought clarity in the act by inducting new definitions and drawing lines for inspecting authorities to save contractors and small businesses from exploitation.
The act as in its amended form expunges the provision that mandated need to obtain permission and go through inspections for contracting companies employing 20 or more labourers on contractual basis. The act differentiates activities into core and non-core (13) activities warranted by the changes in business environment in 45 years.
“This (act) has nothing to do with minimum wages. This is for the benefit of contractors and employers,” maintained Principal Secretary of the department, MS Bhatia, adding “industrial activities have gone up significantly and it has to be looked into context. Employment has increased considerably and size of operations has increased”.
The act exempts contractors and business units for employing 20-50 contract labourers in the non-core activities however beyond that those units will automatically come under the purview of the act. On the other hand, irrespective of the strength of contract labourers, the act would govern core activities entirely.
Notwithstanding the furore in Jharkhand Assembly and the protest that spilled out of the assembly, the Minister remarked the opposition as frustrated and shedding crocodile tears for contract workers.
Hitting back at the protests, Paliwar stated, “Elements opposing the act are against the youths of Jharkhand. They want migration to continue, youths never get jobs, businesses do not enter Jharkhand and labourers continue to suffer so that they can run their politics”.
Even as Paliwar presented the progress report of the department, he announced host of small reforms that will be introduced to support labourers and protect their rights. Chief among the measures included setting up helpline in January, deputing ‘shramik mitra’ to offer advice to labourers about laws and organising ‘shramik samvaad’ (discourse among labourers) to collect their grievances and expectations.