The first-ever national policy for domestic workers is all set to go to the Cabinet for its approval, entitling them to minimum wages, defined work hours, paid annual and sick leave and maternity benefits. The thrust of the policy is to bring domestic workers under the purview of existing labour laws, which would help them avail all the rights and protection available to other workers. According to official estimates, India has...

-The Business Standard After food, education and information, pension is being sought as a fundamental right Old age should be cushioned with an assurance of minimum necessities in the form of pension. But, for a majority in India, there is either nothing or very little. Recently, Labour Minister Mallikarjun Kharge said in Parliament that 83 per cent of the 55 million beneficiaries of the Employees’ Pension Scheme (EPS) get a pension...

The exploitation of migrant construction workers has grown alongside the expansion of the industry. It's time the government got serious about upholding the law. A recent report in The Hindu on the violation of labour laws at a massive construction site belonging to the Army Welfare Housing Organisation in Bangalore raises yet again the repeated neglect of regulations relating to the employment and welfare of workers by construction companies in India. For...

What is it that makes the Indian middle class treat their domestic help with such derision and abuse? In her nine years as a nurse working with rescued domestic workers in Delhi, Mariamma K. thought she had seen the worst. That was until 2010, when she and her colleagues went to rescue a 17-year-old girl from a home in west Delhi. Sangeeta was found with bite marks all over her body....

To plug loopholes in the law on maternity benefits, a government panel has suggested an amendment forbidding the sacking of a pregnant employee on any ground.  The Planning Commission's working group which had been asked to review the Maternity Benefit Act 1961 has also recommended increasing the duration of maternity leave, though it did not specify by how days it should be increased.  The group wants the government to incorporate a clause...