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When I tweeted about how labour law is important to unorganised sector workers too, a lot of people asked, but what about jobs? Let's be clear - this 'reform' isn't going to help with jobs that people need (1/n)
First, the claim is made that labour law is "stifling" the expansion of the organised sector. But the letter of these laws is barely implemented. Some eg's: in 2014, in Rajasthan, there was 1 inspector for every 674 factories and 25217 workers https://scroll.in/article/675894/eight-reasons-why-rajasthans-labour-laws-do-not-amount-to-radical-reform;(2/n)
Back in 2012, the Uttarakhand Labour Dept told us in an RTI reply that no fines had been levied in the preceding decade under the Building Workers Act and the Inter State Migrant Workers Act and that only Rs.22000 in fines had been collected under the Contract Labour Act (3/n)
In 2014, many industrialists in Rajasthan did not even know about the labour law provisions that were supposedly interfering with their expansion https://scroll.in/article/675644/Hiring-and-firing-workers-was-never-difficult-in-Rajasthan,-data-shows (4/n)
Besides, if the 'reform' claim is true, we'd expect that employment would grow faster where these laws don't apply. But in fact data shows that for 1988 - 2008 employment in establishments covered by labour law grew faster than in those not covered http://www.macroscan.org/fet/feb14/pdf/Labour_Market.pdf (5/n)
Endless weakening of labour laws has not produced either better employment or more employment. It has created the extreme poverty we see today. It is also not good for business itself, since, as is obvious, if workers are paid little they cannot consume. (6/n)
The importance of labour law was not legal but political - the fact that workers were deemed to have legal rights was important for everyone to understand. Abolishing it is also a political message. That's why UP's ordinance is so badly drafted, it's a slogan, not a law (7/n)
But it's phenomenally short sighted. India's economy had been suffering from lack of demand even before CoVID-19. Now, when a large share of the population has no savings, dancing to big business whims will only further destroy the economy - and employment with it (8/n)
Again, and finally, these points aren't "leftism" (real leftism has a lot more to say :) ). This is common sense. Here's the Economic Times saying something similar ( https://m.economictimes.com/news/economy/policy/view-the-unbearable-lightness-of-these-labour-reforms/amp_articleshow/75645061.cms). Look beyond the corporate press releases and it becomes starkly clear to everyone. (end)
