COVID-19 and State Failure: A Double Whammy for Trade Unions and Labour Rights
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COVID‑19 and State Failure: A Double Whammy for Trade Unions and Labour Rights K. R. Shyam Sundar1
© Indian Society of Labour Economics 2020
1 Labour Market and Industrial Relations System–Pre‑COVID‑19 The Constitution of India, the International Labour Standards (ILS) framework of the ILO (comprising Conventions and Recommendations) and its pradigms like the Decent Work, Judge-made law (i.e. judgments delivered primarily by the Supreme Court) and social dialogue (both tripartite and bipartite) together determine the labour laws and rule-making processes in the Industrial Relations System (IRS) in India. This has been the classic framework that was followed largely during the command economy period in India, i.e. 1947–1991. With economic liberalisation, employers demand labour law governance (inspection) and reforms to afford labour flexibility to them (shortly, Labour Market Flexibility, LMF). Notwithstanding protests by trade unions, several state governments have introduced at various times, reforms to afford LMF to employers. According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) 2017–2018, 83.5% of the 260 million workers in the non-agricultural workers work in the informal economy. Around 70% did not have a written employment contract; around half of them did not have access to any form of social security and paid leave. Thus, informality and weak labour rights characterised the labour market and the IRS during the COVID-19 period. COVID-19 has greatly shaken up the labour market, and this period has witnessed ineffable sufferings and woes of workers.
2 COVID‑19, the State and Employers The sudden national lockdown introduced on March 25 initially for 21 days was extended with varying relaxations till May 31. Later even as un-locking took place, local lockdowns have continued. Lockdowns meant near-total stoppage of economic activity (not covered by labour laws). Trade unions argue that during the lockdown * K. R. Shyam Sundar [email protected] 1
XLRI, Xavier School of Management, Jamshedpur, India
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period, the state should assume full control and even responsibility of the economy and welfare of the workers. As the economy gradually even fitfully unlocked, employers came into the picture. So, trade unions have engaged mostly with the state (including the judiciary) and to some extent with employers. The Labour Ministry merely issued advisories to employers not to retrench workers and pay wages to workers during the lockdown and conspicuous by its absence. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) issued a directive (on March 29) to employers of factories and shops and establishments to pay full wages to employees during the lockdown period, March 29 to May 17 which as we note below was ineffective. Critics have argued that the relief measures announced by the central government are parsimonious and even ill-directed (Ghosh 2020). Along with the relief measures for COVID-affected firms and workers, the Central government also introduced
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