-TheWire.in While most of the laws may not be strictly enforced, does that justify doing away with them completely? In the last week, several important labour laws, meant to safeguard the welfare of the workers and ensure industrial safety, have been “suspended” for a few years in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. Although the orders put out by each state government have their own tweaks and variations, these decisions collectively come with...
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Are India’s migrant workers beasts of burden owned by industrialists? Karnataka seems to think so -Rohan Venkataramakrishnan
-Scroll.in The migrant exodus will undoubtedly hurt the economy. But that is no excuse for forced labour. The Indian government’s policies towards its vulnerable migrant worker population were already a mess. This week, Karnataka made it worse. The Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled state decided to cancel trains that would allow working-class people from other states to return to their homes five weeks after a national lockdown to combat Covid-19 left them stranded, often without...
More »Boost wages to stimulate India’s growth -Jayan Jose Thomas
-The Hindu The economic crisis can be overcome only by raising the consumption of and investment for the poor Impoverishment among English workers during the early years of the Industrial Revolution had prompted Leicester framework knitters to frame this resolution in 1817: “… if liberal Wages were given to the Mechanics in general throughout the Country, the Home Consumption of our Manufactures would be immediately more than doubled, and consequently every hand...
More »‘We are trapped’: Hunger is on the rise in Haryana’s industrial belt -Vijayta Lalwani
-Scroll.in Contract workers have not been paid full salaries and are uncertain about their future. Thirty-five-year old Surendra Shah has been eating smaller meals since the lockdown began. He eats only twice a day – at 9 am and later at 9 pm. Despite the frugality, the stock of flour in his home ran out on Thursday. He is left with barely any rice, a kilo of potatoes that he purchased for...
More »What economic slump really means for workers -Shiv Inder Singh
-Newsclick.in Punjab is industrialised and its agriculture is mechanised. The state is in the grip of a downturn which has hurt the migrant poor most. The Union Budget is the talk of the town, but the economic downturn is not. The prevailing economic situation has hurt all sectors of the business and economy. One symptom of the downturn is that unemployment has broken a 45-year record. Even if these facts are known,...
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