Changes to Labour Laws: Good or Bad? A Debate

There has been a massive and profound debate on the brewing topic of labour laws application changes or sweeping labour law reforms that are introduced by many state governments including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat. The changes to labour laws in these states came after the Prime Minister had urged the states to work on strategies to woo foreign investments that are likely to shift their manufacturing plants from China.

Of which the reforms or let’s say abrogation of application of many labour laws by Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath have been most contentious and controversial. So, this article is specifically in the context of labour law reforms introduced in Uttar Pradesh.

On May 8, he had approved an ordinance to abrogate all existing labour laws except for a few which include: the right to timely wage payments, the abolishment of bonded labour practice and child labour, provision of compensation payment in cases of work-related disease or disability occurred to labourers during their work tenure for the period of next three years. Also, the new labour law reforms will not be applicable to female labourers.

 The opposition, to the changes made to labour laws, deemed it to be inhuman and argued that the new laws are immoral as they tend to dehumanise labourers by making their exploitation practically legal by taking from them all kinds of social security mechanisms accorded by the previous labour law guidelines, many of which now have been completely stripped off by the Yogi government.