Comparative Analysis of Labour Codes with Existing Legislation | Original Article

ABSTRACT:

The term labour is included in the concurrent list of our Indian Constitution under 7th schedule. Hence, the law regulating labour can be enacted by both the Parliament and the State Legislatures. In India, labour is regulated through almost 40 central labour laws which regulate the various aspects of labour such as social security, working conditions, wages and Industrial disputes. The existing labour legislation is very complex and is very difficult to understand by people for whom this act has been enacted. Hence to ease the complexities and to make uniformity in labour laws, the Second National Commission recommended to merge these labour laws into various categories such as Industrial Relations, Wages, Social Security, Safety, and Welfare Working Conditions to make Indian Economy more vibrant and competitive.Accordingly, the Central Government had introduced four bills on labour codes to consolidate the 29 major Centra labour laws out of 40 central labour laws. This paper highlights the major changes and its impact on regulation of law as we all know that now 14 Central Acts with almost 1458 sections and 937 compliance's have been consolidated into four codes with just 480 sections. After implementation of these codes, the industries will have an ease over filing multiple returns under various labour laws. It will certainly decrease the working complexities of the Company. Over the years, India has performed poorly in the ―Ease of Doing Business Index‖ report published by the World Bank. Hence, the goal of the Indian Government behind introducing and implementing labour codes is to make India a lucrative market hub for manufacturing industries. The Indian Government has been trying hard in this direction since 2014. Undoubtedly, the business environment in the country is improving rapidly and this happens due to continuous efforts of the present government which has prioritised this matter after 2014. As a result, India‘s Doing Business ranking has improved from a position of 142 in 2014 to 63 in 2022, as per the World Bank report. And with the completion of long pending labour reforms the government certainly achieved the goal to make India in the top ten nations in the Ease of Doing Business index in the coming years. But, as we know every coin has two sides. It is true that on one hand, the codes will simplify the existing laws, on the other hand these codes have loopholes too. Hence, the paper generally focuses to deal with the various aspects of labour codes in comparison to existing labour laws for better understanding of labour legislation because without comparison between the two, codes are not possible to understand.