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The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour has urged the Centre to ensure that revised minimum wages are paid to all contract/casual employees in the Central sphere, including sanitation workers.
In its meeting held on August 23, the Standing Committee noted that deployment of such workers was being done for perennial nature of jobs in government, public sector undertaking offices, establishments, including at railway stations.
However, “some establishments/organisations where the contract/agreement for engaging contract employees was made prior to revision of minimum wages in the Central sphere vide notification dated February 19, 2017, are not paying the wages as per the revised rates”, the panel noted.
Following the Standing Committee’s observation, the Labour Ministry has sent an office memorandum to all Central offices concerned, PSUs and the Railways on September 14, urging them to “ensure that establishments and organisations in the Central sphere, where contract, agreement has been made prior to the notification, may ensure that minimum wages are paid to workers as per the revised rates.”
The number of contract and casual employees in the Central sphere has been steadily rising in the past three years.
In a written reply to Lok Sabha, former Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya, had informed the House that the number of contract workers engaged on the basis of licence issued under Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 in the Central Sphere during the last three years had increased.
In its January 19 notification, the Centre had revised minimum wages under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, for all scheduled employment in the Central sphere, including agriculture sweeping and cleaning, watch and ward, loading and unloading, construction, stone mining and crushing, and non-coal mines.
Incidentally, the Centre plans to bring in a labour code Bill by integrating four labour-related laws and aims to ensure a national minimum wage across sectors by integrating the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, the Payment of Wages Act, 1936, the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965 and the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976. The Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha on August 10.
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