It is perfectly logical that the NDA government is looking for solace now in the proposed labour law reforms after its failure in pushing the Land Bill and also the Goods and Services Tax (GST). In the backdrop of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise at the 46th session of the Indian Labour Conference on July 20 that these changes will be done through a consensus, though, a fast-track movement in this area of reform too, needs to be handled carefully.
In fact, if the plan of the Labour Ministry and the Prime Minister’s Office to push the legislative and procedural changes over the next six months, despite trade unions’ opposition is not calibrated with the current logjam in Parliament, the government might just end up opening another front for confrontation with the Opposition in the Winter session.
A better idea here would be to just keep on supporting the labour reform initiative of the states through the Presidential assent route on the lines of the Rajasthan experience – states like Haryana and Madhya Pradesh have already decided to toe the same line – instead of getting into any major confrontation with the trade unions at the national level.
Simultaneously, the government must also engage in a continuous dialogue with the trade unions, and it would be better if industry chambers are also made part of this exercise, to reach a consensus on the required changes in different laws in a time-bound manner.
It is true that labour reforms emerged as one of the key areas to spur investment in the prime minister’s meeting with top industrialists last week, but that doesn’t mean the government should try to do this in a hurry. Going by reports, a slew of amendments is being put in the pipeline for pushing in the Winter session of Parliament, including the amendments to the Minimum Wages Bill, Bonus Act, Employees Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act and the Employees’ State Insurance Act among others.
While it can be nobody’s case that the central government should not do its groundwork for bringing legislative changes in the central laws to create a template for improving ease of doing business scenario in the country – in the current scenario, it would be prudent to create a situation in Parliament first for the passage of the amendments and then introduce them.
PM Narendra Modi would have done well by applying this strategy much earlier in the case of the Land Bill, and there is no reason why he should repeat this mistake by trying to hurry the central labour law changes.
[polldaddy poll=9078303]
