Webinar on 'Labour & the Law in India'

Concept Note on “Labour and the Law in India”

The history of May Day reminds us of the Labour Struggle for “Eight Hours Workday”, led by the U.S. Federation of Organised Trade and Labour Unions in Chicago at the Hay Market Square on 1st May 1886. The U.S. Government suppressed the struggle which resulted in the death of many workers. From that day forward, across the globe, specifically in India from 1927 onwards, 1stMay is celebrated as Labour Day to commemorate their fight for labour entitlements and to build their future without oppression and exploitation from any actors.

Labour movement has hugely contributed to the realization of the rights of labour, as in the instance of “Eight Hours Workday”. This interlinkage between labour movements and labour rights has challenged contemporary injustices and redetermined social experiences and expectations. We have also witnessed phases of strategic labour litigation by labour movements/unions to expand the state law’s institutional capacity, political objectives, and effective legislative intervention. This clarifies that labour law is mobilized by labour movements to legitimize workers’ rights through the strategic use of law.

In India, we have witnessed the contribution of labour movement to the economic and political democracy during the period of post-independence. However, the focus on organized labour has periodically contributed to orphaning unorganized labour from legal architecture. The ‘social movement unionism’ identified the legal divide and differential treatment and voiced for legislative recourse. This led to many progressive initiatives in the form of welfare boards, sector-specific legislation, and social security legislation for the unorganized sector. However, the lacunas both in the substantive labour entitlements and in the implementation of these enactments have made it a ‘window dressing’ effort. The current labour reforms have challenged the social justice framework of labour law to the respect that it further distances unorganized labour from labour entitlements.

The new expansion of the workplace to virtual space has evolved discussion on new worker categories and modernization of labour law. As the Market has always brought changes in work and work relations, labour law has consistently engaged in jurisprudential debates related to the nature of work, work relations and workplace at different junctures. The judicial discourse is often influenced by market dynamics, and it creates ‘the pendulum swinging back towards contract law theory’. The understanding that labour law has made inroads into the common law is forgotten with the balancing approach in industrial relations.

The question of political and economic democracy is integrally related to collective bargaining and wage-led growth. It is in this context we also ponder from a critical political economy perspective over the questions of starvation, poverty, un(der) employment and exclusion of marginalized communities. The benefits of welfare legislation shouldn’t be deprived of labour with unending ‘legalese and logomachy exercises by the judiciary’. (Justice V.K. Krishna Iyer)

Based on this background, the following areas may be taken up for discussion:

1. History of Trade Unionism under different economic systems

2. Interlinkage between the labour movement and the labour law

3. Challenges of Indian Trade Unionism and Law Relating to Unorganised Sector

4. Limitations of legislative vision for inclusion of informal labour under the Labour Law

5. The human development crises such as starvation, poverty and unemployment: Revisiting redistribution strategy