Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Union Labour and Employment Minister, interviewed by Damini Nath (The Hindu)

Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Union Labour and Employment Minister, interviewed by Damini Nath (The Hindu)

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published Published on Oct 2, 2020   modified Modified on Oct 3, 2020

-The Hindu

The existing labour laws fell short in responding to the changed world of work

The recently passed Code on Social Security, the Industrial Relations Code and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, which along with the Code on Wages, 2019 subsume 29 labour laws into four codes, were passed after widespread consultations, says Union Labour and Employment Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar

* There has been criticism about the manner in which the three labour codes were passed. How would you address the criticism that the Bills were not sent to the Standing committee again and there was lack of consultation with the stakeholders on the final draft of the Bills?

I wish to clarify that the final draft of the Codes has been framed after wide-ranging consultations with all stakeholders. The labour reforms exercise which culminated recently was initiated on the basis of the recommendations of the Second National Commission on Labour, 2002, which had recommended to subsume then existing Central labour legislations into four or five Codes. It was from 2014 onwards that our government took active steps towards codification exercise.

I would like to inform that the Labour Ministry seeks to always ensure tripartite consultations in its decision-making. In this context an extensive consultation process was adopted wherein all stakeholders including trade unions, employer associations, state governments, international organisations and citizens were consulted. Various consultation processes were held along with seeking the comments of general public by placing the draft codes on the website. Subsequent to this broad consultations, various modifications were made. Many suggestions of trade unions including recognition of trade unions at unit, State and Central level and providing mechanism for inter-trade union dispute resolution through industrial tribunals were accepted. Lastly, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on labour after scrutinising the labour codes and consulting all stakeholders gave 233 recommendations out of which about 74% of the recommendations were accepted by the Government.

After such broad consultations at various platforms, I don’t think that the statement about lack of consultation on Codes is justified. We cannot keep on referring the Bills again and again to committees and in the name of consultation process keep deferring the much needed reforms.

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Image Courtesy: The Hindu/ Ranjeet Kumar


The Hindu, 2 October, 2020, https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/cant-keep-deferring-labour-reforms-in-the-name-of-consultation-says-labour-minister-gangwar/article32752433.ece?fbclid=IwAR3-gTlbbslHWOVQsgx3LsnHUQrlpLLSTbS-8TO_Bu3H2HL-vTzpKEhZL8o


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