Labour Law Changes

The changes in labour laws announced during the lockdown period in several states reflect a lack of concern for the highest levels of unemployment seen in the past 45 years and the large number of workers leaving industrial pockets and returning back to an economy ravaged by agrarian distress. The events of the last few months suggest that distinctions amongst the working class in terms of organised/unorganised, formal/informal, and migrant/local are being narrowed. Labour must consolidate across the board taking anchorage in the commonalities of experience that various divisions face today.

India, like the rest of the world today, is going through a pandemic. But the discussion in India, especially surrounding policy, does not seem to take this into account. The government is busy pitching whatever measures it wanted to introduce before the COVID-19 pandemic struck, as definitive ways of recovering from the pandemic’s impact on the economy. This article specifically deals with the changes suggested in existing labour laws. For those of us who question this stance of the government, it is not enough to only look at the inadequacies of the rationale provided while introducing these reforms. These inadequacies were there before COVID-19 as well. It is equally important to raise, if not answer, the question as to what is motivating the government to initiate these changes at the time of a global pandemic.

Reasoning or Its Lack