Seven parties write to President on dilution of labour laws

NEW DELHI: Seven political parties have written to President Ramnath Kovind, accusing the Centre of diluting labour laws by using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse. Workers are being treated as slaves, the letter said.
“Reducing them to this status is not merely a violation of the Constitution but its nullification,” said the letter signed by CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury, CPI general secretary D Raja, CPML general secretary Dipankar Bhattarcharya, All India Forward Bloc General Secretary Debabrata Biswas, RSP general secretary Manoj Bhattacharya, RJD MP Manoj Jha and Viduthalai Chiruthaigal president Katchi Thol Thirumavalavan.
While UP has exempted factories, businesses, establishments and industries from the purview of all, but three labour laws and one provision of another Act for three years, the Madhya Pradesh government also announced exemption of all establishments from obligations under all labour laws for a period of a thousand days.
Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Punjab have extended working hours from eight to 12 hours without amending the Factories Act.
The parties raised a concern that the others states are likely to join this list.
The parties said the Indian economy was already in a tailspin hurtling towards a recession even before the coronavirus outbreak. The government has done little to help those who lost their livelihood. Fourteen crore workers have lost their jobs since the lockdown began, the letter said.
“Diluting labour rights seems to be the logic employed by ‘your government’ at the Centre and by some state governments, rather than concentrating on fighting the pandemic by augmenting our health facilities and protecting our doctors and health workers and taking care of the people’s requirements,” it said.