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India
is faced with the twin problems of 'poverty' and 'unemployment'.
The employment generation, therefore, has been at the centre of
India's development policies and programs. In over half a century
post independence, India had endeavoured to adopt appropriate policies,
establish institutions, and enact laws that would create conditions
for the achievement of full-employment. Therefore, each consecutive
government has initiated policies and programs, in conformity with
the Constitution of India, aimed at achieving peace, democracy and
social justice for all its inhabitants.
The framers of its Constitution
visualized that India will have a democratic order; that sovereignty
shall vest in the people; that every citizen shall enjoy Fundamental
Rights that guarantees freedom and equality; that the aim of the
State shall be to abolish poverty by assuring full employment and
minimum wages; that concerted efforts will be made to raise the
standard of living of the masses through increased production, disparities
are reduced by maintaining a ratio between minimum and maximum income;
that workers and employers regard each other as partners; etc
The trade unions in India, that
celebrated it centenary in 1992, could be grouped under two main
categories, i.e. the politically affiliated unions and the independent
unions. The affiliated unions [those having links with one or the
other political parties] have federated themselves industry wise
as also geographically. There are almost 70,000 registered trade
unions in India and the BMS is the most representative national
union.
The announcement of the New Economic
/ Industrial Policy [NEP] in 1991 brought about changes of fundamental
nature thereby moving the Indian economy from a centrally planned
to open market system. The shift paved way for the removal of majority
of restrictions with regards to entry of private as also foreign
players in specific industrial activities. The NEP also made flow
of foreign capital easier.
The convergence of interests is
the basis of FES activities in India. The FES, guided by the principles
of peace, democracy and social justice has been collaborating with
partner organisations / institutions to create conditions that would
lead to the realisation of peace, democracy and social justice in
the economic spheres also. In this connection it has been supporting
activities and initiatives having influence on labour and its trade
unions.
Issues dealt by this Unit are :
Employment
The dominant features of employment
and unemployment in India are typically those of less developed
countries. There are low rates of open unemployment but much higher
level of poverty. The poor can't afford to remain unemployment.
Consequently, nearly 33% of the employed workforce in 1993 were
poor on the other hand only 18-19% of those unemployed were poor.
Implicate in this feature are higher rates of under-employment and
low level of productivity and income, as also open unemployed among
those above the poverty line. Predominantly, a large proportion
of the workforce employed in the agriculture and a very large proportion
of those employed both in rural and urban informal sectors report
themselves as self-employed or casual workers. Of recent there had
been an increase in female work participation rates and increase
in education level of the workforce. Unemployment of educated youth
is gradually becoming a serious problem.
The distinctive features of Indian
labour market include:
[i] Domination of the informal sector: India, like many of the low-income
countries, has dualism in labour market, The Indian Labour market
is divided in to formal / organized and informal /unorganized sectors.
The informal sector accounts for over 90 per cent of the total workforce.
[ii] Unemployment and other element of social wages are virtually
absent.
[iii] The problem of 'working poor': The general level of unemployment,
as various data indicate, is low because the poor are too poor to
be un-employed. The unemployment rate in India is only 5% but the
level of poverty is more than 33 percent. Thus though most of the
people are registered as employed but large proportions of them
earn extremely low-income formwork. Consequently, there are high
incidences of poverty.
[iv] Open Unemployment rates tends to be high among the educated
population.
[v] Insecurity of income is a characteristic feature of many types
of employment, for example casual labour.
[vi] The self-employed and part-time employment categories form
major segment of the total employed work force.
[vii] Access to employment and income from employment tends to depend
on social background of labour market participant, particularly
in the informal sector.
[viii] Even where educational and skill level are similar, gender,
kinship, cast, tribe, etc. remain important determinants of access
to employment and level of remuneration.
[ix] Prevalence of socially unacceptable forms of employment e.g.
bonded labour and child labour.
[x] Higher gender bias in education and other human development
indicators leading to its adverse implication in the labour market.
[xi] Migration: There is large-scale migration [rural -rural as
also rural - urban] of labour. This could be due to push or pull
factors. It has been seen that seasonal migration is higher than
the long-duration.
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Labour Rights
The Constitution of India has placed
Labour in its Concurrent List, thereby empowering, both, the Central
and the State governments to enact laws relating to labour. In the
following large number of laws having relevance to labour were enacted.
As of now The labour falls under the concurrent list of the Constitution
of India which implies that both the Central (or the Federal) and
State governments are empowered to enact laws on the subject. However,
the provisions of the Central would prevail in case of dispute between
the central and state laws. The Constitution guarantees seven Fundamental
Rights to its citizens. The citizen has a right to go to the judiciary
in case one or the other of the Fundamental rights is violated.
there are over two hundred laws
that have direct relevance to labour of which 56 are enacted by
the Central Government. In addition there are Supreme Court judgements
which have the same status as the law of the land. The laws practically
take care of all the issues of the concerns of labour. The labour
laws, further, do not make any distinction between the organized
and unorganized sector, yet the resources of the government and
trade unions were directed towards this section of workforce. Interestingly,
this section of the workforce is already well protected. It is this
condition of excessive protection that deters the possible investors
to enter the Indian market. The ground realities are, however, different
since most of the laws remain good in paper, more so for those employment
in the informal sector. The real exploitation of the worker and
his/her family takes place in the unorganized sector where unions
are conspicuously absent
India is a member of the International
Labour Organisation [ILO] since its inception. One of the main function
of the ILO is to establish minimum standards through adoption of
Conventions and Recommendations. The Convention has legal standing
and, on ratification, the national governments are bound to file
progress report with regards to its enforcement. India has, so far,
ratified 39 Conventions. The Recommendations do not require ratification
by the national governments as the same are promotional in nature.
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Industrial
Relations
The Industry or factory is a meeting
point of two differing interests. The Management's interest is to
widen the gap between the market price of the product / services
being produced. On the other hand, the Employees' interest is to
maximize the return on the services rendered. The relation between
Management and Employees or between their respective representatives
is defined as Industrial Relations [IR]. The IR's objective is to
minimize the chances of industrial disputes that could result in
the disruption in production. There could be many cause for the
rise of industrial disputes, however, figures on incidences of industrial
in India indicate that some of the main causes of industrial disputes
include wages and allowances; personnel and retrenchment; in-discipline
and violence; bonus; and leave and hour of work. The Industrial
Disputes Act 1947 provides for the investigation and settlement
of disputes so as to secure industrial peace.
The history of industrial disputes
in India show that in the post 1991 era there had been decline in
the incidences of industrial disputes as compared to 1980s. Further,
the dominant cause of disputes have shifted from 'strike' to 'lockouts'.
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Informal Workers
Informality has been a way of life
in this part of the world more so in India. The process of formalizing
the production process as also relationship between employer and
employee began with the enactment of the first factory act in the
colonial India. Subsequent enactments, e.g. the Trade Union Act
in 1926, etc laid foundation for the formalization of the employer/employee
relationship as well. However, the applicability and the enforcement
of these laws were confined to a small section of total economic
activities. In the five decades since independence, the situation
in India has not changed much as those covered by the provisions
over 100 labour laws remained confined to relatively fewer numbers
of establishments and the workforce employed therein. Resultantly,
the vast area uncovered by the formal structure is playground for
those who controlled resources. And in this adventurism the government
machineries as also the elected representatives, including those
of labour, connived.
Faced with the negligible job opportunities
in the formal sector, most of the new and the unemployed workforce
get themselves absorbed in the IFS. The informal sector employment
could be considered as those that are home based workers, independent
workers, own account establishment workers, employees of unregistered
establishments as also of small scale units, contract / casual workers,
workers employed in EPZs and ancillary units, etc.
At the all India level the share
of own account enterprises [self-employment] in total non-agricultural
employment is estimated around 33 percent. On the other hand, at
the all India level, about 42 per cent of the total workers in establishments
are engaged in small units [employing nine of less workers] that
are taken to be part of the IFS. The following table show the proportion
of employment in small establishments [of size one to nine workers]
to total establishment employment, the proportion of hired workers,
to total employment in all establishments of all sizes, and finally
the share of IFS in total non-agricultural employment. This figure
is on the lower side in the states of Assam, Gujarat and Haryana.
The proportion of hired workers to total workers in the establishment
is estimated at 87.7 per cent at the all India level.
The relative size of the IFS is
estimated as the proportion of employment in the own account enterprises
[self employment] and small establishments [less than ten workers]
in the non-agriculture sector. So the share on the IFS in the non-agriculture
employment works out to be around 61 per cent. Further, the ratio
of employment in the own account enterprises to the total non-agricultural
employment turns out to be 33 per cent, which means that at all
India level with in the IFS self-employment category is slightly
higher in size than that of small establishments. In some of the
poor states like Orissa, the share of IFS is as high as 71% while
in some of the industrialized states, such as Gujarat and Maharashtra,
it is 48 to 52 per cent
These figures, however, do not including
increasing number of individuals employed in industries that have
cropped up in almost all the metropolis in India after the de-licensing.
The hot jobs, as they are normally called, have come up in increasing
numbers in industries such as entertainment and media, it enabled
services such as Business Process Outsourcing, medical, banking
and finance, manufacturing in particular garment, fitness and health
centres, etc. Even a rough estimate as to the size of workforce
employed in this sector would be non-representative as it is expanding
like a wild fire.
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Trade Unionism
Trade Unions consider themselves
as the sole representatives of the working class in India. In the
performance of its role, the unions endeavour to protect and promote
the working class interests. The Indian Trade Union Act of 1926
defines a trade union as a combination, whether temporary or permanent,
formed primarily for the purpose of regulating the relation between
workmen and employers or between workmen and workmen, or between
employers and employers or for imposing restrictive conditions on
the conducts of any trade or business, and includes any federation
of two or more unions. Since then the Act has undergone a number
of minor amendments but the overall framework of the Act has remained
unaltered. According to the Act any group of seven persons could
form a union. There are, however, discussions to bring in amendment
to raise the number to 100 or 10 per cent of the employees as minimum
required for the registration of a trade union.
The Indian Trade Union Movement
[ITUM] held its Centenary Celebrations in 1992 . In the years following
India's independence, the ITUM membership has remained stagnant,
if not declining. Its activities have been more or less confined
to organized sector, more so to the public sector enterprises [PSEs]
- from where over 70 per cent of its membership is drawn. Since
the focus of ITUM was the workers in the organized sector, more
so those employed in the government owned establishments, the concerns
mass of workforce engaged in the unorganized sector has remained
out of ITUM's focus. Long working hours, under payment, sexual abuse,
physical confinement are day-to-day affairs. The workers take these
actions of their employer as fate [and rights in the case of employer].
On the other hand the workers in the organized sector has been able
to secure comparatively a better status and higher standard of living
due to effective enforcement of labour laws.
The trade unions too are now trying
to penetrate the unorganized sector. There are some signs of workers
having been organized in beedi, construction, fisheries, forestry,
home based work, etc. industries. Efforts to organize junior artists,
technicians, cameramen, etc. in the Indian film industry are also
being made at Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai. However,
enrolling of a worker as a member of union can't be a sufficient
indictor of workers' concerns being addressed effectively. There
is need to realize that the conditions in the unorganized sector
is different then the ones existing in the organized sector as such
one ought not do the mistake of using same tools.
The latest verified figure on the
membership of Central Trade Unions on December 1989 as declared
in July 1994 by the Government of India. Accordingly five of the
Central Trade Union Organizations [CTUO] have been accorded recognition
of being national centres of trade unions. These are, the BMS with
verified membership of 31,17,324 tops the list followed by INTUC
[27,06,451], CITU [17,98,093], HMS [14,77,472] and AITUC [9,23 ,517].
In addition there are a large number of non-affiliated / independent
unions functional particularly in the unorganized sector and private
/ joint venture companies. Then there are other forms of workers
organizations, such as Morcha, labour cooperatives, NGOs, etc. performing
the role of promoting workers welfare.
During over a century of its existence,
the trade unions in India have grown in size and strength. This
is inspite of the fact that their membership account for no more
than 2 percent of the Indian Workforce. As of now the trade union
movement in India comprises of over 70,000 registered unions and
an unaccountable number of non-registered organization engaged on
the issue of promoting and protecting workers' interests. The politically
affiliated unions have consolidated themselves by establishing a
well-developed federal structure. They have established their federations
at state and district levels as also industry-wise. One will not
be wrong to say that this has been possible due to their closeness
with political parties. The non-politically affiliated unions on
the other hand are fragmented. Although they are very professional,
financially sound as also much effective at the enterprise level,
they have not succeeded in developing their federal structure. Their
involvement in policy-making bodies is almost negligible.
The Indian Trade Union Movement
is close to political parties, narrow support base, there is multiplicity
of unions, centralized decision making, ad hock management, obsolete
strategies, external and over aged leader, personalized and power
oriented leadership, confrontationist attitude, non-existent second
tier leadership, and negligible women representation.
In spite of these weaknesses the
trade unions occupy significant position in India more so in matter
relating to labour policies. They have become more vocal in the
current political scenario wherein the UPA Government is in office
with the support of the Left Political Parties. Politically practically
every political party patronizes the trade unions and therefore
they are able secure prompt attention from the government and the
employers. At the time of general election the "labour vote" becomes
the decisive factor in the victory of party candidate from the industrial
constituencies. Economically, it is centered in the growth sector
of the economy, i.e. in the key industries such as cement, iron
& steel, coal, heavy electrical, transportation, textile, dock,
banking, etc. Thus, in India the working class in the organized
urban sector exercises political and economic power far in excess
of what their number warrant.
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