Indian businesses and states are rushing to adapt to the sudden introduction of what Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed as one of the biggest overhauls of labour rules since the country’s independence from Britain in 1947.
Unions organised demonstrations in several states as well as in New Delhi after the government suddenly enacted four new legislative codes, compressing and updating 29 laws — some of which date back to the colonial era — late last month.
The regulations seek to formalise the vast informal sector, slashing gig contracts, expanding coverage of social security to include India’s more than 10mn gig workers and establishing the right to minimum salaries with a benchmark “statutory floor wage”. The rules will also erase restrictions on hiring women for certain jobs and grant free annual health check-ups for employees.
But by making it easy to hire and fire workers — it raises the threshold for companies requiring prior government approval for lay-offs from 100 to 300 workers — Tapan Sen, general secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions with some 7mn members, said the reform would “totally demolish labour rights”.
“We are going into a head-on confrontation with the government on this,” he said, warning unions could call for a general strike.
The Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions, a leftwing and opposition grouping of Indian unions, called it a “deceptive fraud” by Modi.
With Modi focused on helping the economy withstand punitive US tariffs, his...
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