Equal freedom and forced labour

Context:  States’ removal of labour laws during COVID-19 is unconstitutional 

Evolution of Labour rights

• Karachi Declaration and Bill of Rights, 1931:  expressly placed labour rights on a par with ordinary civil rights, eventually found their way into the Indian Constitution in the form of FR and DPSP. Prominent among them is Article 23 guaranteeing right against forced labour.

• Enlarged definition of “force” and “freedom” where “force” doesn’t only represent physical character but social and economic too.
• Judiciary’s concurrence: In PUDR vs. Union of India judgement, 1983 court held that right against forced labour also includes right to minimum wage.
• Inequality of power: With the rise of the platform or gig economy, the rise of casualization and structural inequality between capital and labour is starkly visible, and gives rise to a “private government” which creates a facade of democratic political sphere with unilateral term setting.

Purpose of Labour laws

• Mitigate the imbalance of power: to secure the “rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”, in both the public and the private spheres.
• Means: By the way of giving workers a stake in private governance, and mandatory seats for labour in the governing boards of firms (“co-determination”) or by creating a detailed set of laws (such as india).

Indian scenario of labour laws

• Criticism: set up a labour bureaucracy prone to corruption, inefficient adjudicatory mechanism, unconscionable tiered structure where informal workers have few rights etc.

Way forward

• Proposed legal changes in the shadow of COVID-19 should be measured by the yardstick of equal freedom based on Constitution as a charter of freedom