Draft regulations for three labor laws are not yet available in five states: Minister of Labor

Parliament was notified on Monday that five states have not yet pre-published draft regulations under the three codes on occupational safety, social security, and industrial relations.

According to a written response presented to the Lok Sabha on Monday by Minister of State for Labour & Employment Shobha Karandlaje, four states or Union Territories have also failed to pre-publish draft rules on the Code on Wages, 2019, which are necessary to implement labor reforms in the nation.The minister clarified that “Labour” is a topic included in the Constitution’s Concurrent List and that the central government and state governments have been given the authority to establish regulations under the Codes.

She stated that the federal government has pre-published the draft regulations as a first step toward implementing the four labor codes. The government held three tripartite consultations on the draft Central Rules under all four Codes on December 21, 2020, January 12, 2021, and January 20, 2021, following notification to the Codes.

As per available information, the minister said, “4, 5, 5 and 5 States/Union Territories have not pre-published their draft Rules under the Code on Wages, 2019, the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, the Code on Social Security, 2020 and the Occupational, Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020, respectively”.

Meetings were held with those states/UTs to facilitate them framing draft rules within the ambit of Labour Codes, she added.

According to the information that is currently available, she informed the House that 32, 31, 31, and 31 states/UTs have pre-published the draft rules under the Occupational, Safety, Health, and Working Conditions Code, 2020; the Code on Wages, 2019; the Industrial Relations Code, 2020; and the Code on Social Security, 2020, respectively.

According to the minister, a number of meetings were arranged for the remaining states and union territories to help them formulate their own regulations that fall under the purview of labor codes. Four labor codes have been created from 29 labor statutes that were codified under the labor reforms.

The central government has combined four regulations from the Wage Code, nine laws from the Social Security Code, thirteen laws from the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020, and three laws from the Industrial Relations Code to guarantee workers’ right to minimum wages. All states and Union Territories must now pre-publish draft regulations on the four codes so that the governments in charge of their respective territories can enact them all at once and enforce them consistently.