PM wants industrial relations policy to be sensitive

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New Delhi, Apr 27: Citing the Chinese model, Prime Minster Manmohan Singh on Friday said the industrial relations policy must be “sensitive” to absorb new technologies and ensure competitiveness while creating new employment opportunities and protecting interest of the working class.

“The experience of countries like China should alert us to the vital role of industrial modernisation and technical change,” he said. Singh said the government would work with trade unions and industries to strengthen labour laws to ensure that the twin objectives of employment generation and workers’ welfare are met.

He said trade unions and business leaders could do a lot to help create an environment in which investors feel confident enough to invest while creating gainful employment and promoting workers’ welfare. “If we can provide an environment in which investors feel confident enough to invest, we will be able to generate gainful employment and promote workers’ welfare,” he said after giving away Shram Awards to 45 workers for their exemplary commitment and dedication.

“We have to create an environment in which all stakeholders have an incentive to be active participants in the management of social and economic change,” he said. Singh also stressed that government, employers and workers could work together with an “accommodative” approach and address challenges facing the nation.”In the long run, the standard of living of our people is a matter to higher productivity and there are no shortcuts to it,” he said.

Singh said to remain competitive in an increasingly integrated global economy “we have to be receptive to technological change and to the imperatives of modernisation” and added that a solution could not be found out by working and thinking in isolation.

He said people could be turned from liabilities to economic assets if they could be gainfully employed. “Investment in their capabilities, in workers’ education and training and investment in labour-intensive manufacturing are necessary to promote employment and workers’ welfare,” he said and pointed out that the challenge before the Government was to increase the skilled workforce from 5% at present to about 50%, which is the norm in developed countries.