By Shivani Mishra
For an employer-employee relation, the expectations have revamped. In lieu of wages, what employees expect in today’s era is expanding employee rights which have inspired the legislators to introduce fresh legislations and policies in turn enhancing the active involvement of employees in the endeavor to achieve the peak the companies aim at.
Companies aiming to employ a global workforce or which have a distributed workforce its quite crucial to stay on top of legislative order failing to do such can cause hefty fines, legal consequences and may hamper the reputational damage.
The annual World Justice Project (WJP) Rule of Law which measures the rule of law index all over the world in its report analyzed that since 2016 more countries have marked a global rule of law recession and on a closer look it can be observed that Labour rights which forms one of the major criteria for adjudicating the compliance of rule of law in a particular nation 52% of the countries are improving in this domain.
Among the 113 countries that have been included in the index since 2016, 59 have improved and 54 have declined. The report includes countries showing improvement in their labour laws where India reserves its position. While the report shows an urgent need to pay heed to egregious issues including human trafficking, slavery and crack down of worker’s rights around the world.
History of Labour Laws
The history of Labour Laws can be tracked back fromthe remote past and the varied parts of the world. European writers have recognized importance tothe guilds and apprenticeship systems of the medieval period, Asian Scholars have traced labour law standards from the period as back as the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi and the rules of labour law as recognized in India in the Hindu Laws of Manu-smriti, Latin Americans identify Labour Laws of Indies recognized by Spain during the 17th Century. However no specific source could be used to extract the Labour Laws prevalent around the globe and with the successive industrial revolution from the 18th Century, which were pregnant with the intimacy of employment relationships, which ceased to provide adequate protection to the employees against the abuses incidental to new forms of mining and manufacture domain gave birth to the Labour Laws we know of today.
The British Health and Morals of Apprentices Act of1802, which was sponsored by the elder Sir Robert Peel was the first landmark of the Modern Labour Law. Labour Law codes or other comprehensive labour law legislations were not introduced until the 20th century.
Elements to be taken into account
Legislatures have proceeded to evolve Labour Laws in their territories of legislation to include the rights of employees and companies trying to establish a global workforce pay heed to it. While formulating Labour Laws certain elements need to be taken account of which are as mentioned-
Employment: Including in its ambit creation of employment as a major objective. Freedom from forced labour, equality of treatment in employment and occupation, unemployment benefits may be regarded as other objects.
Individual employment relations: Unlike earlier times when employer- employee relation was recognized as a master-servant relation where one agreed to serve the other and was in absolute control of that master in hope of wages. As the law developed it led to introduction of consideration of rights of employer and the employee and provided a statutory aspect of this relation introducing attention on aspects such as the termination of employment, dismissal procedures and compensation, minimum wages, conditions of work and social security.
Wages and remuneration: The substantive law regarding wages majorly covers the methods by which wages could be credited, avoiding unfair deduction of wages, determine minimum wages, fringe benefits etc. Regulations regarding minimum wages have transformed into varied forms but originally the British Trade Boards Act 1909 came up with the procedure to go ahead with the idea of fixing minimum wages in domains where wages were exceptionally low and there were no arrangements for a collective arrangement regarding minimum wages to be fixed. The British Trade Boards Act paved the way ahead to be followed by countries like Australia and New Zealand through arbitration arrangements or the United States that carried forward through its Fair Labour Standards Act. The agreements included provision for Fringe Benefits in case of varied contingencies.
In Spain, the statutory minimum wage have increased by 54% in the last six years. The United States Department of Labour has introduced a new rule extending the mandatory overtime pay, similarly France has published a legislation to empower employees rights to profit sharing. Argentina and Venezuela have proceeded towards dollarization of wages such that employees are paid in dollars instead of local currency to maintain their purchasing power.
The income policies and wages were such formulated that they do not increase the inflationary pressure. Regard being made to the fact that increase in wages do not necessarily lead to increased productivity so the objective was not the increase in income or to provide increased fringe benefits but it was to ensure fair distribution of income.
Conditions of Work: The process of ameliorating the conditions at work place started from maintain the number of work hours to prohibition of child labour, regulation of employment of young children to forming special provisions for women at workplace.
In Ireland, the gender paygap reporting for companies have dropped to include organizations with more than 150 employees from 250 employees earlier. In the UK, the Labour Party is committed to introduce positive efforts by the employers to take action to tackle high gender paygaps. Brazil has introduced biannual gender gap reporting for companies with more than or equal to 100 workers.
Health Safety and Welfare: The efforts made by the organized safety movements and occupational medicine produced comprehensive standards for maintenance of occupational health which is no longer limited to the acute risk but covers the full range of dangers arising from modern industrial processes.
Hong Kong brought up the initiative that it would stop requiring transgender people to undergo full sex reassignment surgery before they can change the gender markers on their id cards.
In Denmark, parents of twins are entitled to do an additional 13 weeks of paid parental leave that has to be taken within 12 months of birth or adoption. In California, employers are to give 5 days of unpaid leave to employees undergoing pregnancy loss. Colombia allows two hours of paid break to breast feeding moms and employers must also maintain a breast feeding room.
In the Netherlands, employers with more than 100 employees have to report CO2 emissions from work related travel and commute.
Trade unions and industrial relations: In the United States, there is a body of law that regulates trade unions, the most significant enactment in them being the National Labour Management Act and the National Labour Relations Act. The United Kingdom has a marginal view regarding the trade union issues except for the legislations of 1871, 1875 and 1906 which provide certain immunities to the trade unions.
In the European Union, the European Commission has published significant proposed reforms to European Works Council Directive, the reforms are to strengthen the influence of EWC.
Germany has formulated policy to ensure pay to work councils at the times when they are released from work in order to regulate and reduce the risk of incorrect payments.
Work-Life Balance: The UK has given a go ahead to the legislation obliging employers to a normal pay to the employees for at least four weeks of holiday. In order to promote healthy work culture countries like France, Spain, Portugal and Australia have introduced right to disconnect in order to ensure that the workers have a legal right to refuse to check or respond to work related messages beyond working hours.
The Indian Scenario
India is a country with leading working age population in the world. The laws regulating employment relation in India are called labour laws or industrial laws. After independence with the growth of Indian nationalism, Indian workers demanded for their rights. India has numerous employment laws which are as followed-
The Industrial Employment (Standing Order) Act, 1946
The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947
The Trade Unions Act,1926
The Factories Act, 1948
The Workmen’s Compensation Act,1923
The Employees’ State Insurance Act,1948
The Employee’s Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Act,1952
The Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972
The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961
The Payment of Wages Act, 1936
The Minimum Wages Act, 1948
The Payment of Bonus Act, 1965
The Equal Remuneration Act,1976
The Contract labour Act, 1970
The Mines Act,1952
Labour laws in India specify the responsibilities of the workers and the employees including management of the workplace, ensuring guidelines to solve industrial disputes such that both the parties, the employer and the employee, devote their time and energy in uplifting the status of the company. The labour laws in India ensure the protection of the rights and liberties of the employer and the employees, allowing fair benefits to the labours.
The labour laws in India ensure ameliorated working conditions, health, safety, security, wages and also ensure economic and non-economic benefits. Labour laws in India aim to prevent industrial disputes and promote industrial democracy.
However there are certain challenges that the domain faces which majorly includes poor implementation of labour laws in the nation as exploitation of the labour laws could be seen in very sector.
What is required is an effort to ensure proper implementation of labour laws as what the nation drastically lacks is the awareness regarding the lack of awareness. A major section of labour in India is not friendly with the rights they have and the employers do not bother to take a step forward as it could lead to workers demanding monetary and non-monetary benefits which could lead to increased cost of doing business. A major part of the workforce comes from villages that though have migrated to big cities, either return to their native place during crop season or little do they care about their rights (low literacy rates could be one of the reasons) creating a loophole in implementation of labour laws in India.
In India, we have a varied varietyof workforce including skilled, unskilled, literate, illiterate, rural, urban, and available at low cost and legislation made and the implementation manifested has to be keeping in mind the scenario. All three sectors, the government, employers and employees, need to work hand in hand to achieve organizational and national goals.
—Shivani Mishra is a second-year LL.B. student of Law Centre 1, Faculty of Law, University fo Delhi
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