The Ministry of Labour and Employment on 8th May 2020 held a Webinar with the Employers’ Organizations to discuss issues like restarting economic activities, job creation, labour reforms and measures to improve the situation of MSMEs to enable them to discharge their liabilities under the labor laws.
The Ministry has informed about various measures taken by it to mitigate the problems of workers during COVID-19 like relaxation in the provisions of ESIC and EPF, setting up of control centres and helplines across the country, etc.
The industry bodies suggested a slew of measures and sought ‘relaxations’ such as increasing working hours to 12 hours per day from the existing 8 hours per day and sought relaxation of the provisions of the Industrial Disputes Act to treat the lockdown period as lay-off.
It is relevant to note that, some State Governments have already granted permissions to factories to function for 12 hours.
Further, during the discussion, the industry representatives requested labour reforms such as: increasing the maximum limit of 33 per cent workforce to at least 50 per cent of the workforce after the reopening of the industry to allow an increase of goods and services to the optimum level and to suspend the labour laws for the next 2-3 years except for the provisions like minimum wages, bonus and statutory dues, to help the industry to come out of the present crisis. Its also requested that the wages paid by to the workers may be covered under expenses under CSR funds.
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