Date:23 November 2019, 6.00pm to 7.30pm
Venue:India International Center, Delhi
Topic:Four Labour codes: Emerging challenges and Scope of labour rights in India
Chief Guest:Justice (retd.) AK Sikri, Supreme Court of India,
Key note speaker:Subhash Bhatnagar, noted labour rights activist, National coordinator, NCC-CL,
Participants:Workers, Lawyers, law students, CSOs, Journalists, Individuals and experts on labour rights, Harshingar mahila samuh cadres, MARG team and interns
On 23rd November 2019, Multiple Action Research Group (MARG) organised the 2nd Anand Prakash Memorial Lecture on “The Four Labour Codes: Emerging Challenges and Scope of Labour Rights in India”. The event was graced by the presence of Hon’ble Mr. Justice Arjan Kumar Sikri (Retd.) Supreme Court of India as the Chief Guest and the keynote speaker Mr Subhash Bhatnagar who is a nationally and internationally acclaimed, eminent labour rights activist and the Chief Functionary of NIRMANA. His work strives to render a dignified life for the people working in the unorganised sector through the means of public awareness programs modelled around legal rights, education and policy implementation.
The event kicked off by the introductory speech given by Mr K.K. Rai, the Chairperson of MARG. He highlighted the major achievements of MARG and how MARG as an organisation has been working towards legal empowerment for the past 35 years with many influential organisations such as the United Nations, Fair Wear Foundation and Flowering Tree Inc., Oxfam, British High Commission, The Asia Foundation, US Aid, UNICEF, Ford Foundation and others. The main highlight of the event was the speech given by Mr Bhatnagar on labour rights and labour codes. He first addresses the event and explained about the basic standards of all labour rights, including minimum wages, work hours, working conditions and other requirements of workers that have been set out both in the organised and the unorganised sector. Through this explanation, he also stated the problem attached to the proposed action of assimilating all labour laws in the country under four codes. He explained that it would dilute labour rights to a greater extent and miss out on a lot of intricacies that are embedded into the various labour legislations. He also mentioned that the absence of employer-employee long term relationship and a permanent management team poses a major gap in the implementation of labour rights. Secondly, he talked about the issues involved with the labour codes. Foremost, the total lack of consultation with trade unions while making new laws is a complete undemocratic approach. Secondly, he mentioned that lack of understanding on the importance of providing social security is the main issue because it overlooks the fact that the unorganised sector workers are surviving at a partial minimum income and can barely survive the contribution for their social security. The third and last issue he discussed was the total lack of understanding of the relationship between the regulation of employment and provisions of social security. He ended his speech by stressing on the need of the hour, which was that the real and potential beneficiaries oppose the drafting of such laws. The four labour legislation will benefit only some sections of organised sectors while completely ignoring the workers under unorganised sectors. He closed the session by suggesting some initiatives through which workers of the unorganised sector can be informed about their legal rights and how they may raise their voices against potentially dangerous new proposed legal changes. After his speech, the chief guest forwarded the event and talked about the need for a comparative analysis of unorganised working sectors in China and India. After all the key sessions, the event ended on a good note, where MARG offered the full support to Mr Bhatnagar’s mission and joined hands with him in his fight towards the empowerment of the marginalised communities.
