Workers Will Emerge Victorious
M A Baby
The history of the workers’ movement is intertwined with acts of extraordinary courage and sacrifice by working people the world over – struggles that ripped apart the chains of unending toil and established workers’ rights, including the 8-hour work day and the right to collective bargaining. This proud legacy has its roots in the 1893 Chicago strike and the events of Haymarket Square, where workers demanding ‘eight hours for work, eight hours for rest, and eight hours for what we will’ were met with brutal repression but ultimately ignited a global movement. In India too, hundreds of thousands of trade unionists and workers, have been part and parcel of this international struggle. Indian workers were fully immersed in our glorious anti-colonial freedom struggle too. Workers secured their rights through mass mobilisation and sacrifice, forcing colonial rulers and governments in independent India to enact legal protections.
Labour Laws vs Labour Codes
Workers’ hard-won rights have been incorporated into the fabric of the Indian labour sector through a patchwork of 29 legislations. These spanned crucial domains – wages, industrial disputes, social security, safety, conditions of work, compensation, maternity benefits, child labour, and more. Legislation like the Factories Act, Minimum Wages Act, Payment of Wages Act, Employees’ State Insurance Act, Industrial Disputes Act, and the Trade Unions Act, among others, collectively defined the rights, safety, and dignity of workers for decades. These laws provided concrete mechanisms for dispute resolution, social security, limited retrenchment and closure, collective bargaining, mandated working hours, wage protections, gender-sensitive safeguards, health checks, and the right to form or join unions. Despite inadequate enforcement, they stood as a bulwark against absolute exploitation and arbitrary power.
In the name of ‘simplification’ and ‘ease of doing business,’ the Union government has replaced these 29 statutes with four omnibus codes. The Code on Wages (2019) supposedly seeks to standardise wage criteria, minimum wage, payment deadlines, and related benefits. The Industrial Relations Code (2020) redefines dispute resolution, strikes, layoffs, retrenchments, and diminishes the rights of trade unions. The Code on Social Security (2020) aims to merge multiple existing social security laws relating to provident fund, ESI, gratuity, and welfare funds. The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code (2020) covers health, safety, working conditions, and welfare provisions in varied establishments.
The government claims that this restructuring seeks to rationalise, modernise, and even extend some benefits – such as gratuity eligibility after one year and inclusion of ‘gig workers’ under social security. Annual health check-ups and provisions for women’s night work are quoted by those who parrot this official version, as progressive measures. But these proclamations ring hollow when scrutinised. The reality is that 90 per cent of the Indian workers – those in the unorganised sectors, contract and casual labourers, home-based women workers, self-employed workers, migrant workers, and gig workers – fall outside the effective coverage of these Codes, or are essentially excluded from it. Therefore, in fact, these Labour Codes underline the NDA regime’s servility to corporate interests, as revealed by the sweeping dilution of rights, protections, and regulatory oversight.
Consider the clause that employers with up to 300 workers are exempt from seeking government permission before laying off employees or shutting down operations. The earlier threshold was 100. This means the vast majority of Indian enterprises – i.e. those that have fewer than 300 workers – now operate beyond the scrutiny of labour authorities. Workers in these establishments can be dismissed, deprived of wages and welfare, or forced to accept arbitrary terms with virtual impunity for the employer. Such exclusions serve the bottom lines of corporations and business houses while dismantling the minimal legal guarantees won by the working class. The government’s narrative of ‘universal social security’ is belied by the Codes’ actual exclusions and the weakening of operational mechanisms – making it harder for workers to unionise, criminalising collective action, marginalising inspections, and digitising compliance to further elude accountability.
Work More, Rest Less
The stated intent to ‘modernise’ India’s workforce has emboldened apologists for capital. Narayana Murthy of Infosys, for instance, infamously championed a 70-hour work week – arguing that India’s “youth must work harder” to propel the nation forward. This reflects the ideology behind the Labour Codes: to normalise overwork, erode the eight-hour standard, and squeeze more surplus from every working person without corresponding compensation or rest. The Codes grant legal sanctity for longer shifts, flexible scheduling, and night work for even women – without strengthening safeguards or collective bargaining avenues. Discussed as ‘choice’ and ‘flexibility,’ these provisions in fact serve corporate convenience, not workers’ welfare. What is laid bare by the weekly work hours debate is this crude corporate agenda.
This regime’s agenda is clear; a relentless attack on the country’s two largest classes of producers – workers and farmers. The chronology is instructive. Just as the Modi government rammed through the three anti-farmer Farm Bills to hand over agriculture to big capital, now it bulldozes workers’ rights with the four new Labour Codes – undermining social solidarity and constitutional guarantees. The attack is on the nation’s true producers. The farmers’ movement, through its unity and resolve, dealt a historic defeat to the government. For over a year – from late 2020 to late 2021 – farmers, joined progressively by workers and unions, braved state repression, relentless propaganda, and the dangers of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over 700 farmers became martyrs, sacrificing their lives in defence of their livelihoods and in resistance to the arrogance of the state.
The passing of the Labour Codes mirrored the passage of the Farm Bills. They were rammed through Parliament in September 2020 with minimal discussion, ignoring opposition parties and trade unions, and with absolutely no tripartite consultation with workers’ representatives or state governments. The pandemic was cynically used as a cover to dismantle protections without scrutiny; all objections, amendments, and expert advice were set aside. The current notification of these Codes post-election, inspired by the Bihar Assembly election results and amidst a deepening crisis within the Indian economy as it goes down the neoliberal path set out by successive union governments, flies in the face of democratic norms and federal consultation.
Workers will Resist
But workers are not passive. The notification of the Labour Codes has already provoked protests. Trade unions, including all major Central Trade Unions and numerous sectoral federations, have called for joint action. The nationwide strike and demonstrations on November 26 are just indicative of the strength of Indian workers and what their unions are capable of doing. These struggles have seen the participation of tens of thousands across states, from factory clusters to unorganised settlements. Street protests, public meetings, legal challenges, and mass campaigns are gaining momentum. Workers know that unity and struggle are the only way to defend their hard-earned rights and to advance further. Even in Parliament, opposition MPs have come together to protest these anti-labour codes.
The CPI(M) unequivocally condemns the imposition of the Labour Codes, standing shoulder to shoulder with the country’s toilers. They betray the sweat, blood, and sacrifice of generations of Indian workers, subordinating their rights to profits and corporate power. But just as the Farm Bills were withdrawn in the face of united struggle, the Labour Codes too will have to be rolled back. The Party pledges its full and unwavering support to the working class. The only way forward is relentless, united, and militant resistance. No force in the world can erase the historic victories of working people. History will prove that labour shall prevail over capital, with the people’s solidarity, struggle, and sacrifice.
