NE NEWS SERVICE
NEW DELHI, JAN 12
RSS-affiliate Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) on Tuesday demanded an increase in the cap on earned leaves to 300 days, from the 240 days proposed in the new rules of labour codes.
The labour union raised the demand during the consultation meeting held by the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment on Tuesday on the draft rules on two labour codes — namely Social Security Code, and Occupational Safety Health and Working Conditions Code (OSH).
The OSH Code daft rules proposed a cap of 240 days on earned leave generally, 90 days for journalists and 120 days for sales representatives.
This is a great loss for those who have sacrificed their right to leave and worked for their employers, BMS said in a statement.
“The BMS demanded the government to raise the limit of earned leave to 300 days from the 240 days cap proposed in the new rules to labour codes,” it said in the statement.
BMS also objected to the omission in the draft rules regarding certain important sectors.
It demanded that separate rules should be made for building and other construction workers, beedi workers, plantation workers, journalists and audiovisual workers, and cine workers.
Nearly 2.5 crore workers and farmers are dependent on the beedi sector, which mainly includes woman workers.
BMS said the proposed draft rules did not cover 80 per cent of the provisions in the labour codes passed by the Parliament. Most of the power to make rules have been transferred to state governments whose lack of interest in labour matters are notorious, it added.
Even the Supreme Court had to intervene in the lack of sensitivity of state governments in labour matters in the issue of building and other construction workers, it added.
The BMS demanded that the threshold limit raised should be withdrawn.
Due to massive contractualisation taking place in the country, even single contract labour should be brought under the purview of the contract labour regulation and abolition provisions of the code.
The BMS demanded increasing the eligibility criteria of the EPF (employees” provident fund) scheme from a monthly salary of Rs 15,000 to Rs 21,000 to make it on par with the ESI (employees” state insurance) scheme.
The rules should provide that ESI benefits should continue to be provided to the employees even after crossing the Rs 21,000 salary cap.
The BMS objected to the filling up of tripartite committees with bureaucrats and technocrats and avoiding sufficient representation of trade unions.
It demanded that the International Labour Organization’s 1:1:2 ratio — one employee, one employer and two government representatives — has to strictly adhere especially in the state bodies.
The ESI and EPF, which are two of the largest social security schemes in the world, are running smoothly only because of the sufficient trade union representation to administer the schemes, it said.
The definition of wages should be widened to include all the allowances so that the employers cannot cunningly avoid payment of contribution to social security schemes and full benefits to retirement and other compensations.
The BMS representatives who attended the consultation included its National Secretary Nilima Chimote, Zonal Organising Secretary Pawan Kumar, National Vice-President S Mallesham and National Secretary Surendra Kumar Pandey.
The meeting was also attended by representatives of the Indian National Trade Union Congress and the Trade Union Coordination Centre apart from representatives of various employer organisations, it said.
Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar presided over the consultation, and senior officials of the labour ministry, including its secretary, participated.
