Union government’s new labour codes, speculated to come into effect from July 1, allow capping daily working hours from the current 8 to 12 while weekly work hours stay capped at 48.
Employers can step towards a 4-day work week, but the codes allow them to increase daily work hours from 8 mandated now to 12 daily. This means any employee wishing for a shorter work week will have to put in more hours of work on the days he is working.
The new codes also allow increase in the maximum number of overtime hours from 50 hours (under the Factories Act) to 125 hours (in new labour codes) in a quarter across industries.
“This would give headroom to companies to adopt the 4-day work week and employ workers on the weekend, if necessary. The 4-day work week can act as a dual-edged sword, as on one hand, the workers would benefit from elongated period of rest, but on the other hand, it entails longer working hours during the weekdays, which may result in deterioration of workers' health. Similarly, the increase in the overtime limit may result in additional earnings in the hands of workers but at the expense of longer working hours or probably working on weekends as well,” wrote Atul Mittal, Partner, Deloitte India, in ET this week.
Missed deadlines
Worker unions told news site NewsClick this week that the union government has missed repeated deadlines to introduce the new labour codes. Since labour falls under the concurrent list of the Constitution, it is required for both the...
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