Labour file
Beware! Our Rulers in Collusion with the Big Capital
are intending to do-away with the Minimum Wages Act!
Even after 69 years of the
rule of our independent country by
our Indian rulers, even after a
quarter of a century with the
implementation of neo-liberal
capitalist economic policies and
reforms that are supposed to have
brought out considerable
development of our economy,
making our country to stand in line
along with the super powers,
paying minimum wages to the
work-force in our country has
remained to be a mirage.
The rulers as well as the
captains of the big-industry and
enterprise are haggling to accept
and agree the concept of minimum
wages and the justification in
paying minimum wages; which
was statutorily mandated.
In fact in this 21st century of
modern times and boasted global
economic and social development,
the work-force in our country are
entitled for living wages. But leave
alone the living wages, not even
the fair wages are being claimed
for by the workers of this country.
The workers’ movement has been
in the stage of demanding only the
minimum wages to the workers
and the industrialists have been
denying even this least demand
under various pretexts.
While there are around 40
crores of workers in our country,
90% of them are working in
informal and unorganised sectors
without any statutory welfare
benefits and security and not even
with the minimum wages that are
needed to maintain the worker and
his family members to keep their
16
body and soul together by
satisfying the bare minimum
needs.
In the wake of the Sept 2, one
day protest strike call given by the
leadership of established trade
unions and traditional trade unions
with a charter of 16 demands, out
of which is a demand for Rs
15,000 per month as minimum
wages throughout the country, in
the corporate media so many
arguments and discussions were
put-forward on the subject of
minimum wages by many
economists, specialists, experts,
H.R. managers and the editors,
showing their academic knowledge
and neo-liberal capitalist economic
out-look a majority of them arguing
that payment of universal
minimum wages in our country is
not pragmatic, feasible and illadvised. They fully undermining
the fact that a worker is a living
human being on whom his family
members are dependent for
sustenance health care, education,
clothing and for bare minimum
necessities, and he also was to
procreate children that would
supply labourers for the future
labour market necessities; are
treating the worker on par with
marketable goods whose prices
are to be decided on market
economy and on vagaries of
market.
In fact after a prolonged
struggle by the working-class of
our country in the 15 th Indian
Labour conference in 1957, a
principle for calculating minimum
wages on the following factors
was evolved and making it
mandatory: 1) The wage must
support three consumption units
(individuals). 2) Food requirement
of 2,700 calories a day. 3) Clothing
requirement of 72 yards per
workers’ family 4) Rent for housing
area similar to that provided under
the subsidised housing 5) Fuel,
lighting and miscellaneous items
of expenditure to constitute 20%
of the minimum wage. In 1991 the
supreme court called for adding
another 25% to the wage yielded
by the above calculation in order
to take in to account children’s
education, medical requirements
etc. But in view of present days
changed minimum needs of the
advanced, developed and more
civilized atmosphere the minimum
wages have to be further
increased; and if accurately
calculated that comes to Rs
22,000 per month. Such has been
the basic and scientific concept of
minimum wages calculation
treating a worker as essentially a
human being but not as a
commercial good.
But the rulers are systematically
attempting to scrap this concept
and are intending to do away the
very system of fixing minimum
wages. Since they are
implementing the neo-liberal
economic policies and reforms
which dictate that the market, but
not the government, should
determine prices so as to
preserve the eff iciency and
competitiveness of free trade
global wise our rulers are
intending to scrap minimum
Class Struggle