4) need for an unified code of labour laws in india

It is a welcome step. How do you plan to compile and submit to the Ministry?

Internal Council (IC) for each company and representatives and participation from employees internal council should in each decision pertaining to the employees should be made mandatory.

Company should recognize the IC and Trade Union of employees within  a max period of 15 days.

Specific Relief Act needs to be modified to take away the provisions which are often quoted to deny the rights to seek reinstatement should be written off from the act.

It should be made mandatory to supply certified copy employee rule book, standing orders along with appointment letter and employee's acknowledgment of the same should me made must. Participation of the employee's representative from IC should be made must.

Service Bond should not be made mandatory as some companies are doing.

Valuable suggestions of learned members/experts are sought.

 

Ayanthika has raised an issue of  vital importance today, in view of the conflicting judgements handed down by Courts, snsequent uopn the "words and Phrases" used in the statutes have no unifomrity andhavebeen tailored to meet specific ares of law. For instance the term "wages" or "employee" are different in different laws. Uniformity of Code must be done to make the law clear and definite to the lay man. This would obviate differen interpretations by Courts and also different rulings sometimes by the Apex Court on the same word, and litigation will not be anymore a speculative exercise or akin to a chance game.

I have spent some time on this insofar as labour and industrial law is concerned and trust one day it may be possible to publish it.

Suggestions are welcom and will be udlt acknowledged.

Thanks Kumar Doab Sir and R. Dwarakanathan Sir  for your very valuable suggestions and support.

I've just started working on the project and compilation will happen in the long run. We shall also involve the legal fraternity, various other luminaries and the media before we publish it or approach the ministry.

Right now I need the valuable opinions of all the Lawyers and others at this forum. I firmly believe that it is we the lawyers who can pointout/figure out the lacunae in the present laws and enactments.

Hence looking forward to more opinions from the lawyers.

Kindly contribute :)

It would be the best initiative to happen in India. In fact the UAE has a well codified and efficient code for employee governance which is succesffully implement. Of course, clean governance is the fundamental base for every law and especially for employee law.

vasudevan

The unified code for Labour Laws in India is needed.

The entire labour legislations can be made into one Code with 

chapters on 

Law relating to Industrial Relations

Law relating to wages/salary and financial benefits

Law relating to social security and social insurance

Law relating to Welfare of employees

This will help to administer the law in a better way with least litigations as confusions on defitions in different acts can be avoided, multiplicity of "authorities under the Act' can be eliminated and most of the outdated laws can be updated keeping in mind todays and tomorrows requirements. 

Thanks for ur responses, Vasudevan SIr and Kutty Sir. Suggestions are really good.

I'm still awaiting more responses from all at this forum.

With the changes in the last two decades, issues relating to labour and employerment have changed and there is a need for a review of the existing labour laws. 

The Labour legislations in India has became obsolete due to it's old age and concepts. We are following the rules brought out in 1920s for Labour welfare. WC Act, 1923, TU Act, 1926 etc are examples. Eventhough some amendments were made, the Acts are not effective. We in kerala had made several attempts to bring out a unified set of legislations. We had an official committee appointed by the Department. I was one among the membres. We submitted a draft and it is still the shelves of KILE, Trivandrum. The Govt. changed twice and now nobody wants to persue the matter. However the law should be changed and unified.

Even in some cases, the very purpose of the Act was defeated. For example, the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act 1970. The aim of the Act was to regulate the conditions of Contract Labour and then ultimately abolish the system of contract labour. But today, for even regular work of an organisation "out sourcing" is followed.

The entire Labour scenario has undergone a total change. Then how can we use the same tools? For ex: Once permanency was a major issue of employees. Now the retention has became the issue of management. These are all changes happened. So we have to understand the real issue and find out a suitable solution with an appropriate legisation.

Outsoursing has become order of the day.The preamble of the contract labour regulation and abolition act says that contract labour should not be hired for work of  permanent nature.But neither the aforesaid preamble has been repealed / changed nor contract labour system.The section of society which is responsible for the manner in which GDP is created and distributed among various factors of GDP creation ,namely land,labour,capital ,enterprise is skewed against the Labour and hence the LION  share Of the GDP is drifted  away from labour /manpower  ,and thus the gap between rich and poor increases.

Who is willing to legislate for the working /service /salaried class? Unfortunately none.

Dear Ayanthika

Great to here that you are working on a project to bring unified labour codes. 

Have you seen the earlier works on this: one by National labour law association. They came out with Draft labour codes of 1994. (I could not get any hard or soft copy of it) 

Another attempt in the form of suggestions is in NCEUS reports.

And also in: Report of the working group On “labour laws & other regulations” for the twelfth five year plan (2012-17) ministry of labour & employment.

I am a labour researcher and highly interested in this issue. 

Surendra Pratap