As the Centre gears up to usher in another round of labour law reforms, RSS-backed trade union, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), has flayed the proposed changes in the Factories Act being brought about in the “guise of strengthening the manufacturing sector.”
In a 14-page statement, the BMS cautioned the Narendra Modi government that the proposed amendments may lead to India facing the “risk of increased factory calamities, like the Bhopal gas tragedy.”
Incidentally, BMS had pulled out from the all-India trade union strike on September 2 called by 10 central trade unions against ‘anti-worker’ changes in labour laws, among other demands.
“The fall of manufacturing sector in India and its competitiveness is due to various other reasons on which no serious discussions are taking place. India has been reduced to a mere market for imported goods. Our industrial stalwarts are becoming mere agents of foreign MNCs,” read the statement by BMS leaders, Saji Narayanan CK, Rajagopal B and Pawan Kumar.
Accusing the Modi government of “lack of vision” for propagating an “imported” concept, BMS said even the World Bank recently dropped “labour” as an impediment from “ease of doing business”.
Calling for wider stakeholder discussions, the union said while it welcomed certain changes, it had objections to amendments changes, such as reducing the role of the chief inspector, conferring “wide powers” to a centralised board of technocrats and bureaucrats, the Act being applicable to only factories employing more than 40 persons, among others.
“Factories and manufacturing units, which were running with 100 workers 40 years ago, can now run with less than 20 workers due to increased mechanisation and computerisation. That is why most of the factories operating in India are having workers less than 40 workers or so,” said the statement, adding that the threshold limit has to be reduced, not increased.