ORIGIN AND OBJECTIVES OF LABOUR LAWS

Dr. Krishna Pal Malik Asst. Prof. (Labour Laws) MGLI, Ahmedabad

Meaning of Labour

The word labour is drawn from 14th century Latin word labor, which literally means stumbling under a burden. Labour means the physical works or manual works, especially people who do practical work with their hands or using the strength of body. Labourer means a person who does skilled, semi skilled and unskilled physical works. But, does not include managerial and supervisory work.

Labour Day

1st May is celebrated as Labour Day and most of the countries have been declared it as holiday, in the honour of working people.
But, some of the countries celebrate first Monday in the month of September as Labour Day. According to the Encarta Reference Dictionary, 2005, United States and Canada also celebrate first Monday in the month of September as Labour Day and declare as national holiday.

Labour law is a separate branch of law

Labour law got recognition as a distinct branch of law within the legal academician. This law is also having separate courts to deal with the industrial disputes. This branch of law is having bunch of enactments for the labour and incidents thereto. Labour law on the one hand recognised rights of labourer and on the other imposing liabilities on the employers, to maintain all the rights of labourer recognised by law. This branch of law is totally different from the criminal law. It prefers alternative approach in solving any kinds of dispute arises between the parties and prefers arbitration, conciliation, board of conciliations, settlements by labour courts or industrial courts, in its own way and molded according to facts.

Basic Principles of Labour Laws

Labour laws establish minimum standard Recognized duties of the employers Establish the statutory rights of the employees Any dispute and difference must be settled in amicable manner by using ADRS Also provides the procedure of ADRS Makes the provisions of contracting out Any offence under labour laws may be cognizable on the complaint or prior sanction of authorities constituted thereof.

Elements of labour laws

Labour law is the term used to describe the varied bodies of law applied to such matters as employment, remuneration, conditions of work, trade union, collective bargaining, relationship between workman and management, authorities to settle the disputes, welfare of labour and their family, social security of workers, etc. Unlike the law of the Contract, Tort, Crime or Property, element of labour laws is less homogeneous than the rules governing a particular relationship.

Contract of employment

Employment is the contract made between employer and employees. Merely making the implied contract allows the applicability of labour laws according to the work. The contract of employment is the cornerstone of the employment relationship. It outlines many of the rights and obligations of the employment relationship. It provides the basis on which the structure of statutory protection is built. Statutory protections provide a floor of employment rights. But in many cases they are conditional on the existence of a contract of employment. The employment relationship is founded upon the contract of employment, so no-one is properly regarded as an employee unless he or she is employed under a contract of employment (otherwise known as a contract of service and distinguished from a contract for services).

Many employment rights are dependent upon the worker qualifying as an employee. In order to entitle a workman to claim compensation under Workmens Compensation Act, a contract of employment express or implied should between the employer and employee is necessary. Any person who voluntarily assists another person is not workman. Similarly, an independent contractor, who is not under the control or supervision of employer in respect of detail of the work, is not workman. The employment is a contract of service between the employer and the employee, whereunder the employee agrees to serve the employer subject to his control and supervision. Employment brings in the contract of service between the employer and the employee. The SC observed the ingredients of employment in the case of Shanker Balaji and held that the concept of the employment involves three ingredients, namely : (i) The employer, who employs, i.e., one who engages the services of other persons; (ii) The employee, who works for another for hire; and (iii) The contract of employment.

Employer

Under the Indian labour law, every enactment is defining the word employer and employee according to the applicability of particular Act. The word Employer may be defined as the person or organisation, hires people to work on pays, for another person i.e., one who engages the services of other persons. This employment may be done by directly or through the agent (or contractor), directly or indirectly; with or without knowledge of employer. Employer may be principal or immediate employer. It is not necessary that employer may be only that person, who is paying the remuneration or wages. As the Factories Act defines the worker, it includes any worker engaged for remuneration or not. The Nagpur Provincial Court held that, if, persons were engaged by merchant, who owned the cotton and not by the Factory owner, called employers. The definition of employer varies, not in changing the sense of the word, but, varies for the purpose of making the correct person liable for his act .

Employee

The world employee may be defined as some one works for another person or hired for consideration. Before some time the employer were engaging according to contract made between them, but now it is abolished and employer has to pay minimum remuneration or wages. In factories Act, 1948, the term worker includes those workers also whose are working without wages (apprentices or trainees). The Bombay HC held that it is not necessary that an employee, in the factory have to receive the payment. The expression whether for wages or not means whether the person receives wages or a remuneration for his service or such person is an apprentice learning work or is an honorary worker. It is also not necessary that employee must be engaged by employer, but they may be engaged by the agent or merchant, directly or indirectly for the principal employer. Eventhough, their name is not shown in the attendance registered.

Wages and Remuneration

Wages are an essential element of labour laws. In India law relating to wages is generally codified and based on the general principles. The substantive laws cover the element of wages and remuneration are (i) The Payment of Wages Act, 1936; (ii) The Minimum Wages Act, 1948; (iii) The Payment of Bonus Act, 1965; and (iv) The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976. Every employer is bound to pay Minimum Wages, and not to pay minimum fixed payment is criminal offence and constitutionally valid. There should not be any kind of discrimination on the bases of sex. The same class of worker shall have similar remuneration. Qualified workman is entitled for the bonus.

Welfare and health and safety of workers

The condition of work involves fixed working hours; rest during working hours; provisions relating to overtime; leave with wages; prohibition of child, young persons and women in certain conditions. Legislative steps also have been taken for them. All legislations on the working conditions are different on its applicability, but, all are based on the principle that every workmen need rest during the working time, definite working hours, leave with wages, and some other amenities, necessary for a natural person. Provisions relating to working conditions are found in a list of enactments. In India, main legislations relating to welfare of workers are (i) The Factories Act, 1948; (ii) The Plantation Labour Act, 1951; (iii) The Mines Act, 1952; (iv) The Working Journalist and other Newspaper Employees (Condition of Service) and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1955; (v) The Motor Transport Workers Act, 1961; (vi) The Beedi and Cigar Workers (Conditions of Employment) Act, 1966; (vii) The Cine Workers and Cinema Theatre Workers (Regulation of Employment) Act, 1981; (viii) The Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Condition of Service) Act, 1996; (ix) The Shops and Establishment Act; etc.

Social security
In the present stage of development of labour law, social security ranges from relatively straightforward employers liability for occupational accidents to the most comprehensive schemes of payments, including income security in the form of sickness, unemployment, old age, employment injury, maternity, paternity, invalidity and survivors benefits and medical care. As with other aspects of labour law, a progress from the particular to the general has been characteristic of the development of social security legislation. By the time of World War-I, workmens compensation schemes were general in industrialized and the industrializing countries, but they still tended to define restrictively the cases regarded as occupational accidents and they were highly restrictive in their provisions for occupational diseases. Pension insurance was part of Otto von Bismarcks legally to Germany, but elsewhere there was little more to be found than pension funds for the privileged and in some countries non-contributory pensions for the aged.

Trade Unions and labour-management relations

Initially, individual employees were negotiating directly with a potential employer on the wages they would receive, for the service provided. With the growth of population, however, the pace of industrialisation, large numbers of people entered the labour market. This brought about several changes. Individual employers and employees did not find it convenient any more to negotiate individually, owing to the pressure of time, variance in rewards for the services rendered and significantly the ability to push for more as a group on the employees part. Employers also found it more convenient to deal with the group rather than individuals.

Administration of labour law

This is an area involving the organisation and functioning of administrative authorities concerned with labour problems, including labour inspection services and other organs and enforcement. Administration of law also encompasses the organisation, jurisdiction, composition, and procedure of labour courts and other bodies for the settlement of grievances arising from existing contracts of collective agreement. The principal problem in many countries is to relate the process of labour administration and special intimacy with labour and management to overall economic and social planning, in a manner that gives proper weight to social considerations in economic policy. This problem falls mostly outside the scope of labour law, but its solution does not depend in part on the extent to which labour law provides for and secures effective standard of administration.

Special categories of worker

Labour law includes a wide range of special provisions for particular occupational or other groups. These sometimes appear as special parts of general code or as special legislation. Sometimes, they take the form of provisions that limits the applicability, or vary the mode of application, of specific legislative provisions with regard to particular groups. The broad sector of the economy for which such special provisions are particularly common and important includes; mines, transport (and in particular maritime transport), commercial occupations and agriculture activities across these broad sectors of economic activity are the traditional legal distinctions made some countries between workers and salaries employees and certain newer distinctions, such as, between employees who earn annual salaries and have rights of tenure, and persons with no such rights engaged and remunerated on a monthly or weekly basis, or that between white collar and manual workers (blue collar) the latter often resting on a factual rather than a legal basis .

Collective bargaining

Initially, individual employees negotiated directly with a potential employer on the wages they would receive for the service provided. With the growth of population, however, and the pace of industrialisation, large numbers of people entered the labour market. This brought about several changes. Individual employers and employees did not find it convenient any more to negotiate individually, owing to the pressure of time, variance in rewards for the services rendered and significantly the ability to push for more as a group on the employees part. Employers also found it more convenient to deal with the group rather than individuals. According to the ILO Workers Manual, which defines collective bargaining as it is a negotiation about working conditions and terms of employment between an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers organisations, on one hand and one or more representatives of workers organisations on the other with a view to reaching agreement.

Salient features of the collective bargaining

It is a group process, where in one group representing the employers and the other representing the employees, sit together to negotiate terms of employment. This process consists of number of steps. The starting point is the presentation of the charter of demands and the last stage is the reaching of an agreement, or a contract, which would serve as the basic law governing labour management relations over a period of time in an enterprises. Negotiation form an important aspect of the process of collative bargaining, i.e. there is considerable scope for discussion, compromise or mutual give and take in the collective bargaining deliberations rather than confrontation. It is a bipartite, in nature. The employers and employees are the only parties involved in the bargaining process. There is no third party intervention. The conditions of employment are regulated by those directly concerned.

Amicable settlement of labour dispute

Works Committee, Conciliation Officer, Boards of Conciliation, Court of Inquiry,

Labour Courts,
Tribunals, National Tribunals, and Arbitrator Authorities constituted under various labour legislations

Crimes against labour under IPC

(a) Buying or disposing of any person as slave : Whoever imports, export, removes, buys, sells or disposes of any person as a slave, or accepts, receives or detains against his will any person as slave, shall be punished with imprisonment up to 7 years and fine. [S.370] (b) Habitual dealing in slave : Whoever habitually imports, exports, removes, buys, sells, traffics or deals, shall be punished with imprisonment for life or with imprisonment up to 10 years, and fine. [S.371] (c) Unlawful compulsory labour : Whoever unlawfully compels any person to labour against the will of that person, shall be punished with imprisonment up to one year, or fine or with both. [S.374]

THANK YOU