The Trade Unions (Amendment) Bill, 2019 – January 10, 2019

The Trade Unions (Amendment) Bill, 2019 was introduced in Lok Sabha by the Minister of Labour and Employment, on January 8, 2019. Which provides for the registration and regulation of trade unions. Introducing the Trade Unions (Amendment) Bill 2019, Union Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar said that so far there was no legal framework on representation of trade unions in policymaking and the proposed legislation will address the issue. The present Act provides for only registration of trade unions and there is no provision for recognition.
The Bill seeks to provide for recognition of trade unions or a federation of trade unions at the central and state level by the central and state government, respectively. Such trade unions or the federation of trade unions will be recognised as Central Trade Unions or State Trade Unions, as the case may be.
The central or state government may make rules for:
the recognition of such Central or State Trade Unions, and
the authority to decide disputes arising out of such recognition, and the manner of deciding such disputes.
THE TRADE UNIONS (AMENDMENT) BILL, 2019
A BILL further to amend the Trade Unions Act, 1926. BE it enacted by Parliament in the Sixty-ninth Year of the Republic of India as follows:—
1. (1) This Act may be called the Trade Unions (Amendment) Act, 2019.
(2) It shall come into force on such date as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint.
Insertion of new section 10A.
2. In the Trade Unions Act, 1926 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act), after section 10, the following section shall be inserted, namely:––

“10A. (1) Where the Central Government is of the opinion that it is necessary or expedient to recognize a Trade Union or a federation of Trade Unions as Central Trade Union at the Central level, it may recognize such Trade Union or a federation of Trade Unions as the Central Trade Union in such manner and for such purposes as may be prescribed and if any dispute arises in relation to such recognition, it shall be decided by such authority in such manner as may be prescribed by the Central Government.
(2) Where the State Government is of the opinion that it is necessary or expedient to recognize a Trade Union or a federation of Trade Unions as the State Trade Union at the State level, it may recognize such Trade Union or a federation of Trade Unions as the State Trade Union in such manner and for such purposes as may be prescribed and if any dispute arises in relation to such recognition, it shall be decided by such authority in such manner as may be prescribed by the State Government.”.

Amendment of section 29.
3. In section 29 of the principal Act, in sub-section (2), after clause (b), the following clause shall be inserted, namely:— “(ba) the manner and purposes for recognition of Trade Union or federation of Trade Unions as Central Trade Union or, as the case may be, State Trade Union and the authority to decide disputes arising out of such recognition including the manner of deciding such disputes;”.

STATEMENT OF OBJECTS AND REASONS
The Trade Unions Act, 1926 (the said Act) has been enacted to provide for registration of Trade Unions and in certain respects to define the law relating to registered Trade Unions. 2. Being a pre-independence legislation, the said Act provides only for registration of Trade Unions. There is no provision for recognition of Trade Unions in the Act. However, presently recognition of Trade Union is governed by instructions and guidelines in the Code of Discipline evolved in 1958 as voluntarily accepted by employers and employees. 3. Since there are demands from various quarters for providing statutory force to the recognition of Trade Unions so that their role will become more important in maintaining harmonious industrial relations in the country, the Government proposes to amend the said Act to make provisions for recognition of Trade Unions or federation of Trade Unions at Central and State level. It is also proposed to empower the appropriate Government to make regulations to facilitate the manner and purposes of such recognition. 4. The Bill seeks to achieve the above objectives.
NEW DELHI;
SANTOSH KUMAR GANGWAR
The 3rd January, 2019.
MEMORANDUM REGARDING DELEGATED LEGISLATION
Clause 3 of the Bill seeks to insert clause (ba) in sub-section (2) of section 29 of the Trade Unions Act, 1926 so as to empower the appropriate Government to make regulations to provide the manner and purposes for recognition of Trade Unions or federation of Trade Unions as Central Trade Union or, as the case may be, State Trade Union and the authority to decide disputes arising out of such recognition including the manner of deciding such disputes. 2. The matters in respect of which rules may be made by the appropriate Government are matters of procedure and administrative details and it is not practicable to provide for them in the Bill itself. The delegation of legislative power is, therefore, of a normal character.
Cabinet approves amendment to Trade Unions Act, 1926

The Cabinet has approved amendment to the Trade Unions Act, 1926 to make provisions regarding recognition of trade unions. The approval will facilitate recognition of Trade Unions at Central and State level. Briefing reporters in New Delhi yesterday, Minister of State for Labour and Employment Santosh Kumar Gangwar said, the proposed bill will ensure that the nomination of workers’ representatives in tripartite bodies by the government will become more transparent.

How Online Skill Training Startups Shifting Focus From A University-Based Curriculum To A More Industry-Oriented Training Approach

A college education may be seen as necessary today, but it is becoming increasingly less relevant for professional success. One of the primary reasons for this is the rising popularity of online skill development platforms and their effectiveness in teaching new skills. Consider what made an engineering degree highly prized over the last three decades? The initial growth of the IT Industry in India created a huge need for analytically bent and skilled employees for which trained engineering graduates looked to be the best bet. Since IT companies were eagerly hiring these engineers, many more people chose to study engineering due to the guarantee of a job. The IT boom in India across the 1990s and 2000s ensured that more high school students chose engineering as their preferred undergraduate studies with a guaranteed job in the IT sector irrespective of the engineering stream they pursued. However, over the last few years, these companies have realized that they had to train graduates they had recruited. The need for additional training after recruitment is a massive added cost for the company. Simultaneously, students who completed college also realized that they had learned little during their undergraduate / graduate studies. In short, an increasing number of students and employers realized that the degrees that had been awarded were not as useful as they ought to have been and a much needed change is on the horizon

In anticipation of a sharp downturn in revenue, video game maker Activision Blizzard will be laying off 800 workers. This move comes on the heels of the best year in the company’s history.

Activision is cutting back about eight percent of its total workforce. The company will bear the cost of severance pays and other accounting expenses associated with laying off hundreds of employees amounting to about $150 Mn. Existing workers will be reassigned to work on Call of Duty and Candy Crush which are among its most famous video game series.

The video game industry goes through more frequent boom-and-bust cycles than other sectors. For example, the currently trending game titled Fortnite produced by Epic Games is partly responsible for taking away the attention and sales away from the new games released by other entities such as Activision.

Even after accounting for the revenue expected from Call of Duty and Candy Crush, the company expects revenue to drop by 20 percent. However, the California-based company’s revenue rose by seven percent to $7.5 Bn–the highest so far in the company’s 40-year-old history, according to a media report.

Since this high revenue still fell short of the organization’s expectations, CEO Bobby Kotick said it was crucial for the company’s future to reevaluate priorities and repurpose resources in order to “achieve long-term goals and objectives.”

The development teams will be mobilized to produce “better content” for the franchises at a faster pace to keep up with the changing trends and short-term shelf lives of product in the video gaming industry.

10 years after crisis, bank CEO pay swells again

Ten years after Wall Street recklessness helped lead to the Great Recession, compensation for top bank CEOs is soaring even as pay flattens at junior levels. Compensation figures released so far by large banks this year suggest a rich season for CEOs, despite myriad worries for markets, including slowing global growth, trade wars and Brexit uncertainty. Compensation for Jamie Dimon, chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, the biggest US bank by assets, hit $31 million in 2018, up 5.1 percent from last year and his highest pay since the 2008 financial crisis. At Morgan Stanley, Chief Executive James Gorman will take home $29 million, up seven percent. Final pay numbers are expected in the coming days from Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup and Wells Fargo. The biggest six US banks last year reported a record $117.6 billion in profits, with JPMorgan notching its highest-ever annual income of $32.5 billion and Morgan Stanley also a new peak at $8.2 billion. Compensation varies for everyday employees of the financial heavyweights but even the more generous boosts do not reach the CEO pay bumps thus far. Pay among JPMorgan’s 256,000 employees rose an average of 4.4 percent, while compensation for Morgan Stanley’s 60,300 workers dipped two percent, according to an analysis published over the weekend by the Financial Times.

Employers to pay for staffers breaking rule

Beginning New Year, those caught flouting traffic rules may not only get a earful from their employers, but the latter may also end up paying the penalty. To ensure discipline driving in the city, the police will start writing to the employers of the traffic offenders informing them about the traffic rules their employees have broken. “Once the commuter is caught flouting any traffic rule, he or she will be penalized and their employer’s name and address will also be noted. The traffic department will then send a letter to the employers and inform them about their traffic offence. The employers will be asked to ensure that their staffers follow traffic rules,” said Amita Vanani, assistant commissioner of police (traffic). “We will also seek explanation from the employer. If the offender again flouts traffic rules, we will fine the employer up to Rs 500 for every traffic offence of their employee. A maximum of Rs 25,000 can be collected as penalty from the employer. This will ensure that the employers insist their employees on following all traffic rules. The idea is to instil a sense of disciplined driving among the citizens,” Vanani told TOI

China has the highest manufacturing wages in emerging markets

China’s era of cheap labour seems to be over. With wages hitting $472, a manufacturing worker in China now costs much more than any other worker in emerging economy. The country is immediately followed by Thailand and Malaysia. On the other hand, India is far behind. Indian workers get just half of what Chinese workers are paid

Why Rural Women Are Falling Out Of India’s Workforce at Faster Rates than Urban Women

The number of women working in rural India is declining at a greater pace than that among women in the urban workforce, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of government data. Sustained high economic growth since the early 1990s has led to improved education and health indicators among India’s women. Yet, women accounted for no more than 25% of the labour force in 2011-12, declining from 33% in 2005, according to national sample survey report (2014) on employment, a rate worse than neighbouring Bangladesh (29%), Nepal (52%) and Sri Lanka (34%), IndiaSpend reported on May 4, 2017. But this decline is more marked for rural women, according to data from the ministry of statistics and programme implementation’s National Sample Survey (NSS), 2014. The aspirations of rural women, increasingly educated and exposed to paid labour opportunities under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme(MGNREGS), have shifted away from unpaid agricultural work on family farms toward more formal, paid work.

Only 23 per cent labour working in railways paid minimum wages: CAG after reviewing 463 contracts

Only 23 per cent labour working in railways are being paid minimum wages, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India said after reviewing 463 contracts, in a report submitted in Parliament Tuesday, a day when 10 central trade unions have called a nationwide strike for labour rights. The auditor in its report ‘Compliance to Statutory Requirements in Engagement of Contract Labour by Indian Railways’ said out of the 463 contracts reviewed, minimum wages were paid in only 105 cases. “In respect of 129 contracts, payment of minimum wages to contract labour was not ensured. The audit assessed a sum of Rs 9.23 crore as short payment to 3,310 contract labourers over the contract period towards minimum wages. Thus compliance to provisions for payment of minimum wages was found in 23 per cent (105 of 463) of contracts,” the report said. Railways execute a wide range of works for the creation, repair and maintenance of its assets. These works are executed through its own workers or via outsourcing. These workers are mostly classified as ‘contract labour’. The audit for the year ending March 2017 also found that only 46 such contracts were registered with the retirement fund body EPFO, and in only 61 cases, the provident fund account numbers of contract workers was available. The audit said the Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948 was enacted to provide for certain benefits to employees in case of sickness, maternity and employment injury. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) also said as the principal employer, the railways was liable to pay contribution in respect of all its employees, including contract labour engaged through a contractor, along with deducting the Employees’ State Insurance (ESI) dues from the bills of the contractor, if short or non-deduction or contribution is noticed. In 116 contracts, contractors were not registered with the concerned regional offices of ESIC, and had not been allotted employer’s code numbers, it said, adding in 148 contracts, ESI account numbers were not obtained.

Private Member’s Bill to allow employees to ignore calls after work

NCP MP Supriya Sule has introduced a Private Member’s Bill in the Lok Sabha to give employees the right to not respond to communication from employers outside of office hours. The Right to Disconnect Bill mandates companies to detail out-of-work demands “as a way to reduce stress and ease tension between an employee’s personal and professional life,” Sule said. Similar provisions have been implemented via the French Supreme Court, introduced in New York, and discussed in Germany. An Employee Welfare Authority will be set up, including IT, Communication and Labour ministers, under the Bill which was introduced on December 28. Besides publishing a study regarding the impact of digital tools beyond work hours and yearly reports, the authority is required to outline a charter outlining employee-employer negotiations. Companies with more than 10 employees would periodically negotiate specific terms with their workers, publish their own charter, and create an Employee Welfare Committee consisting of representatives of the company’s workforce, the Bill states. The Private Member’s Bill forbids disciplinary action if an employee does not reply to employers’ attempts to contact outside of the established conditions. If the employee works outside of the agreed-upon conditions, he or she is entitled to overtime, according to the Bill.

Hotter weather threatens productivity of Indian workers, says study; temperature rise also increases absenteeism
For every 1 degree Celsius increase in temperature above 27 degree Celsius on a hot day in India, productivity of workers declines by as much as 4 percent, according to a new study.  Annual average temperature in India has increased 2 degree Celsius over 200 years to 2006, and is predicted to rise further by 1.5-2.0 degree Celsius by 2030. Simply put, this means if a worker is packing 100 boxes of shoes in a day at 27 degree Celsius, he/she will pack only 96 boxes on a day when temperature is 28 degree Celsius. Small industries such as cloth-weaving units, which cannot afford air-conditioning, are most vulnerable to production losses due to rise in temperature, as per the 30 August, 2018, study prepared by the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago (EPIC), a think-tank. Workers of “hotter regions” such as Delhi and Gujarat – together contributing about 10 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (on prices of 2014-15) – are likely to see a 4 percent decline in the productivity on a hot day against a 2 percent decline in the efficiency of the workers in “milder climate” of South and Central India, according to the study. Researchers looked at both labour-intensive and highly automated manufacturing processes. In the first category, they found that the productivity of workers engaged in cloth weaving or garment manufacturing dropped by as much as 4 percent per degree as temperatures rose above 27 degree Celsius, as per the study