Presented as reforms to streamline compliance and boost business efficiency, the Codes have sparked nationwide protests from trade unions and opposition parties. The Codes emerge from a contentious legislative history, passed amid political turmoil and without tripartite consultations. Their implementation risks deepening state-level disparities and accelerating a market-driven paradigm in labour regulation, prompting unions to warn that they institutionalise precarious employment while paving the way for privatisation.
On Friday, November 21, 2025, the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment notified the rules for four Labour Codes. This overhaul absorbs and repeals 29 existing central labour laws.
These Codes – the Code on Wages, 2019; the Industrial Relations Code, 2020; the Code on Social Security, 2020; and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 – represent the most significant restructuring of India’s labour jurisprudence since Independence.
While the government asserts these reforms will improve, not just the “ease” but also the “speed of doing business” by simplifying compliance and universalising social security, trade unions and opposition parties have launched nationwide protests. They have called the move a unilateral imposition that dismantles the hard-won rights of the working class.
The Codes come into force nearly six years after their parliamentary passage, ending a prolonged...
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