Code on Wages (Central) Rules-2019
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Replacing the Payment of
Wages Act-1936, the Minimum
wages Act-1948, the Payment of
Bonus Act-1965 and Equal
Remuneration Act-1976, the “Code
on wages-2019” was approved by
the Parliament and now became a
law with the assent of the President
on August 8,2019. The Ministry of
Labour and Employment published
the draft rules for implementing the
provisions of the code on wages.
This code on wages is supposed
to have been intended to regulate
bonuses for all workers employed
by any industry, trade, business or
manufacturer.
The proposes to increase
income capacity and purchasing
power of the informal workers who
account for 93% of the total working
population in our country numbering
over 50 crore. But when the draft
rules are read in depth, it is clearly
apparent that the claims of the
government are nothing but false
promises to mislead and hoodwink
the workers. These draft rules do
not hold even an iota of truth of the
tall claims of the government that
“70 years of waiting in granting the
constitutional right of guaranteed
minimum wage had come to an
end” while passing the code on
wages in the parliament.
The proposed rules are neither
based on any scientific method for
fixing the ‘minimum wages’, nor
based on the present day
requirement of workers nor on
current realities. Leave alone a fair
wage – a constitutional right of
workers, the draft rules could not
prescribe for a moral living wage to
ensure basic dignity of life for
workers. It is apparent that the
government
instead
of
acknowledging that minimum wage
January - 2020
is a constitutional right guaranteed
to workers, it had considered it to
be either a dole or an act of charity.
‘World market’ ideology of imperialist
neoliberal economic policies peddled
by globalization and its rule of the
‘market game’ seem to be the basis
in prescribing the rules for fixation
of wages for workers. Our
government is devoted to facilitate
‘ease of doing business’ for the big
capital and its business and industry.
The right for minimum wages of
workers is projected to be a fetter
for industry according to the ‘free
market’ ideology and rules. So the
government has chosen to do away
the constitutional right of the workers
for a fair wage. So in the garb of
amalgamating laws on wages made
this code on wages and attendant
rules for the implementation of the
code.
These rules instead of fixing a
minimum wages, have prescribed
for fixation of a ‘floor level wage’,
thus pushing starvation wages in
our country. The floor wage
according to these rules would be
less than half of Rs.325 per day as
suggested by its own ministry and
far less than the 7 th Pay Commission’s
recommendations. Due to ever
growing unemployment and a large
reserve army of workers, they are
already forced to lead a precarious
life as a mode of existence and are
willingly working on less than
minimum wages. Now the floor level
wage will encourage and exacerbate
this practice and promote forced
labour.
The code on wages provides
for an arbitrary deduction of wages
up to 50% (of monthly wages) based
on performance, damage, loss,
advances etc. This provision only
continue to push workers further in
to exploitative condition, discouraging
and disallowing them the right of
association for fear of huge
deductions from wages under some
flimsy pretext or other. Workers will
not e able to demand even basic
right at work place for fear of wage
deductions and will continue to be
more oppressed and marginalized.
The draft bill proposes
categorizing 681 professions into
four skill based baskets each of
which will have a different set of
minimum wages along with
differences based on geography –
metro, non-metro and rural areas-
and thus made the minimum wages
system more complicated. But the
government has not decided rules
for fixing the level of minimum wages
involving arduous and perilous work,
giving a free hand to employers to
exploit the workers more ruthlessly
without any compunction.
These draft rules did not clarify
the governance and institutional
structure for the “labour inspection
system” in contravention with the
International Labour Organisation’s
Labour Inspection Convention of
1947, which was ratified by India,
which provides for well-resourced
and independent inspectors.
The so-called ‘inspection
scheme’ is meant to watering down
of provisions of labour inspection,
allowing employers ‘self-certification’
of their compliance with labour laws.
This shows how the state withdraws
from regulation of labour-capital
relations permitting those who
violate labour rights to become
enforces/certifiers of labour
regulations.
These rules provided immunity
for the employers from criminality
contd. on page 11
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