Express News Service
NEW DELHI: Two southern states – Karnataka and Tamil Nadu – have created a stir by passing legislation amending the Factories Act, 1948, to allow for extending the working day up to 12 hours a day. This will help employers like international iPhone vendor Foxconn to bring in more flexible timings and make their operations more productive.
These labour changes are necessary, the Karnataka and Tamil Nadu governments say, if India is to compete with China and become the world’s new manufacturing hub.
Replying to critics, the two governments point out that the 48-hours-per-week regimen will remain unchanged, and those who introduce longer hours per day will have to recalibrate to shorter 4 or 5 working days per week.
Be it as it may, the new legislation has stirred a hornet’s nest.
Tamil Nadu, seeing the writing on the wall, has put the amendment on hold.
The Karnataka government frankly concedes it has been done at the behest of Foxconn to bring labour conditions in line with the competitive sweatshops operating in China, Vietnam and Taiwan.
Industrial Revolution
The lawmakers of the two states seem to be blissfully unaware of the evolution of the 8-hour working day. The 18th century Industrial Revolution in Britain created a new capitalist economy on machine production and 12 to 16 hours of debilitating work in slave labour conditions. Children too went to work for a pittance. Amidst this law of the jungle, socialist and English entrepreneur Robert Owen...
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