A Recipe to Tear Down Trade Union

The Hindu     16th November 2020     Save    

Context: Replacing all existing labour laws with the new Industrial Relations Code (IRC) will deter the fundamental and democratic rights of Trade Unions (TU).

Significance of Trade Unions: 

  • Provide a collective voice to working people against the employers’ exploitative, unfair and illegal practices.
  • Provide workers right to better wages, fairer employment conditions and safe and secure workplaces.

Evolution of Trade Unions (TU) in India:

  • Emergence as a self-managed organisation of workers: in the 19th Century in the face of extreme exploitation.
  • Legally recognised: under the colonial rule in 1926, with the passage of Trade Union Act (TUA) having the following provisions
    • The law provided for a mechanism for the registration of trade unions, from which they derived rights and a framework governing their functioning.
    • Bounded workers’ actions within a legal framework: by providing for deregistration if a trade union “contravened any provisions of the Act.”
    • Provided immunity to the members and the elected members: by recognising that actions based on collective decisions by workers did not constitute a criminal conspiracy.
    • Ensures workers right to press and agitate their claims: against the employer and advance them before the government and the judiciary.

Arguments against the Industrial Relations Code:

  • Exclusion of workers from pre-legislative consultations: which includes the absence of the Opposition and ignoring substantive recommendations of the Parliamentary Standing Committee.
  • Will deter collective action and the right to the association: by repealing the TUA, Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 and Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946.
  • Widens the grounds for deregistration of TU : Now TU can be deregistered for contravention of unspecified provisions of the code. (Deregistration was limited to the internal functioning of a union.)
  • Violates the principles of equality before the law and of natural justice: by shifting the balance in favour of employers in regards to deregistration of TU.
      • Deregistered TU loses its immunity from prosecution for criminal conspiracy.
      • They can no longer represent its members (the workers) before the dispute resolution machinery or in court. 
  • The threat of extra-legal formations: like ‘struggle committees’ and ‘workers’ fronts due to the threat of deregistration ever-present.
  • It will push employment dispute resolution outside the legal framework.
  • It will lead to criminalising working-class dissent.

    Conclusion: The IRC dilutes workers’ rights in favour of employers’ rights and undermines workers’ right to association and collective action.