GS Paper III

News Excerpt: 

The reform of labour institutions is always in the air as objective (variables) and subjective (orientation of agencies involved) factors keep changing.

More about News: 

• The case of the industrial relations system and labour market (IRS-LM), variables such as product market, technology, trade and investment, and labour institutions such as trade unions, collective bargaining and strikes keep changing. 
• There are two aspects of reforms- 
• substantive issues 
• procedural aspects.
• Evidence-based reform arguments enrich social dialogue, something which has not happened thus far. 
• Social partners have been advocating their “class-based opinions” unbacked by credible data or experience. 
• Labour statistics, unlike economic and industrial data, are not rigorous. 
• For example, the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) and the National Sample Survey Office produce excellent statistics but have limited information relating to the IRS-LM.
• The Labour Bureau provides statistics on a range of industrial relations (strikes and trade unions) and labour statistics (contract labour, absenteeism, labour turnover, labour inspections). 
• It mostly provides administrative data, viz., those generated as a part of implementing labour laws. 
• The statistics on work stoppages are collected voluntarily. 
• The composition and the scope of data published by the Labour Bureau has remained virtually the same over the decades.

Reform arguments

• Employers have criticized the labor inspection system as an "Inspector-Raj" and have called for its reforms, possibly due to their "limited experience."
• Employers have complained that state governments rarely sanction applications for retrenchment or the closure of establishments.
• Employers demand a curb on the right to strike and prefer non-union workplaces.
• Some neoliberal academics and global agencies like the World Bank/International Monetary Fund have published studies consistently supporting the benevolent impact of reforms and refuting their opposite effects.
• Trade unions should have collected relevant information/statistics on labor inspection, such as the number of sanctioned and employed inspectors, the universe of inspection, and the actual inspection frequency, to make informed arguments supporting labor inspection.
• By studying the data, social partners and the government would have realized the poor quality of data on inspections and the shortage of labor inspectors compared to the inspection universe.
• Research has shown that there is no all-India data on labor inspections.

Closure Reform:

• Trade unions have not collected data on retrenchment/closure applications submitted to the labor department under Chapter V-B, as well as permissions granted/refused by the labour department.
• This data is not published in most states, except in Maharashtra for a limited period.
• While denial of permissions was prevalent during the command economy, the author's study on retrenchments/closures under Chapter V-B in 2001-05 showed that
• Maharashtra was more liberal in granting permissions for retrenchments/closures.

On Strikes:

• The Industrial Relations Code, 2020 (CIR) has made legal strikes nearly impossible, with heavy penalties for illegal strikes.
• Trade unions could have used data published by the Labour Bureau, which would show that lockouts are more frequent and account for more workdays lost than strikes during the post-reform period.
• This evidence could have challenged the need for introducing harsher clauses on strikes in the CIR.

Trade Union's Role:

• Trade unions are well-placed to "produce" statistics on several aspects of the Industrial Relations System and Labour Market at the establishment level.
• Employers' organizations like NASSCOM generate statistics on the IT industry, which are used indiscriminately.
• India has ratified the Labour Statistics Convention (No.160), 1985, and the Labour Inspection Convention (081), 1947, and must generate valid, comprehensive, and reliable statistics on the Industrial Relations System and Labour Market.
• Trade unions must realize that reforms are contested not only through street struggles but also primarily in the realm of ideas, where objective data and rich empirical studies are used.

Conclusion:

In essence, trade unions should produce labour statistics, do research on IRS-LM, build an active and productive interface with academics and use academic studies to make “evidence-based arguments” in the ILC. Imagine a massive strike demanding good labour statistics! The larger society and the government are bound to stand up and seek reform labour statistics. For once, strikes would enjoy public legitimacy. This May Day, in 2024, trade unions must resolve to carry out these measures. If nothing, statistical agencies such as the Labour Bureau will be reformed as a result of these pursuits.