Contract labour now default model of employment in India: RSS-affiliate

RSS-affiliated labour union Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) today threatened to stage protests across the country on September 6 if the Centre does now withdraw its notification on fixed term employment with immediate effect.

Castigating the Centre, it said that contract labour has now become the default model of employment in India and claimed the Union Labour Ministry notification on April 6 on fixed term employment will "legalise hire and fire, while permanent jobs would vanish". 

The BMS will stage protests across the country on September 6 to pressure the state and central governments to withdraw the notification on fixed term employment, its General Secretary Virjesh Upadhyay said.

Noting that 67 per cent of the organised sector workers belong to contract category, Upadhyay, in a statement, that "sub-contract and supply chain are becoming emerging global models of employment."

In April this year the government amended the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Central Rules, 1946, by issuing an notification, to extend the facility of fixed term employment to all sectors. 

It was available for apparel manufacturing sector earlier. 

Fixed-term employment was defined as a workman who is employed on a contractual basis for a fixed period. Thus the services of the workman will be automatically terminated as a result of non-renewal of the contract between the employer and the workman concerned. 

Under this law, when permanent workers retire, their vacancies are filled by the industries with temporary fixed-term employment thereby increasing the number of new unemployed youth, the BMS said.

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"Therefore, we have to stand up to face the Himalayan challenge to make contract labour exploitation free," the BMS asserted.

The BMS' protest to the notification assumes significance as it is affiliated to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the ideological mentor of ruling BJP.