Colin Gonsalves, a senior advocate and founder of the Human Rights Law Network, said that the recent proposals to amend the Factories Act, 1948 ("Factories Act") and the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 indicate the "anti-labour direction in which this government is going". He used three cases to illustrate how labour statutes were not being implemented. First, the case relating to occupational safety at thermal power plants before the Supreme Court illustrated the failure of the Factories Act, 1948 ("a very old statute") and the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1923. The workers, he said, "were suffering in the most terrible conditions" from cancer, asbestosis, and other crippling diseases and there was no medical check up or compensation. The case relating to the Commonwealth Games before the Delhi High Court illustrated the existence of bonded and slave labour and the failure of the minimum wages law. "Wages were not paid, helmets were not given, protective equipment was not there, the helpline...or the lifeline which protects you when you fall was not there, they were living in places where there were bunks without mattresses, without fans, toilets without doors, toilets without water...". In another case pending before the Supreme Court, the Directorate General of Factory Advice, Service, and Labour Institutes did not have a response when the Court asked what was being done about the plight of the lakhs of workers working in the construction, stone crushing, and marble industries who suffer from the debilitating disease of silicosis for which there is no remedy. "Lakhs of workers dying, dying because of that ingestion of that fine silicon dust which goes into your lungs...no action at all." Mr. Gonsalves said that it was elementary to any democracy that minimum wages should be paid and that when you work in a factory, you must work in a secure environment. He argued that labour reforms should address the issue of why these statutes are not being implemented, and the amendments should cover the loopholes in the law and make them fool proof. Proposed amendments to the Factories Act He pointed out that there was a proposal to lengthen work hours and overtime, which went against the global trend. "In the era of globalisation where the hours of work shrink, you come from fourteen hours to twelve hours; to ten hours to eight hours... all across the world it will be eight hours, as a norm. You will do overtime as an exception to the rule. The amendment suggests a spread over of twelve hours. Can you imagine?" He said that it was inhuman for a person to be locked into employment for twelve hours even if he does not work for that long. Further, the limit on overtime, which is now seventy-five hours per quarter, is now proposed to be raised to one hundred hours per quarter. "So the amendment is not only to make you work longer hours in the day, but to make you work longer hours overtime - as of right of the employer! The employer can say work overtime, and you can't refuse to work!" Mr. Gonsalves also expressed his disappointment on the issue of women working after seven. "We thought that the law would be amended and make it progressive and say - all right women can work." But instead, he is disheartened to see the amendment says, "that if the employer has this facility, and this facility, and this facility, and this facility...then, the government may consider issuing a notification allowing women to work, so instead of saying women can work, and the employer must do this, this, this, this, otherwise he'll be punished..." He said that this meant that the government accepts that "women should generally not work". He also noted that the government has proposed a "climb down from the strict liability standard in the Bhopal case", regarding hazardous substances in factories. The Supreme Court had placed a strict liability upon the employers, but now the amendment suggests that "the employer will try as far as practicable, that's the term used, 'as far as practicable' to ensure that things are safe in this factory." He also laughed at the proposed amendments on child labour. "If children are found working in your factory, the parents are going to be punished! The amendment says they'll catch the parents and punish the parents!"

• published: 08 Jul 2014
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