India's new labour codes

Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020

Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 (OSHWC) subsumes 13 Labour Laws into single Code, namely:

• The Factories Act, 1948
• The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970
• The Mines Act, 1952
• The Dock Workers (Safety, Health and Welfare) Act, 1986
• The Building & Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1996
• The Plantations Labour Act, 1951
• The Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979
• The Working Journalist and other News Paper Employees (Conditions of Service and Miscellaneous Provision) Act, 1955
• The Working Journalist (Fixation of rates of wages) Act, 1958
• The Cine Workers and Cinema Theatre Workers Act, 1981
• The Motor Transport Workers Act, 1961
• The Sales Promotion Employees (Conditions of Service) Act, 1976
• The Beedi and Cigar Workers (Conditions of Employment) Act, 1966

The Code applies to a Factory having 20 or more workers and offers significant provisions in terms of ease of doing business for small entities and startups. It contains 143 provisions after subsuming 633 provisions of above mentioned 13 Laws.

The Code aims to:

• Harmonize the definitions of Employee, Employer and Interstate Migrant Worker
• Empowers the Central Government to constitute a National Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board
• Replacing multiple Registrations and Returns under various enactments with one common Registration, one License and one Return
• Appointment of Welfare Officers is mandatory for Factories with a threshold of 250 workers.

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Code on Social Security, 2020

Code on Social Security (CoSS), 2020 also amalgamates and simplifies the provisions of 9 Labour Laws with respect to social security, namely:

• The Employee's Compensation Act, 1923
• The Employees' State Insurance Act, 1948
• The Employees' Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952
• The Employment Exchanges (Compulsory Notification of Vacancies) Act, 1959
• The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961
• The Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972
• The Cine-Workers Welfare Fund Act, 1981
• The Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Cess Act, 1996
• The Unorganised Workers' Social Security Act, 2008

The Code applies to any Establishment subject to size threshold be notified with a principle aim to extend social security to all establishments either organized or unorganized or any other sector.

The significant change introduced in this Code is inclusion of Gig or Platform Workers. It empowers Central Government to launch various schemes with respect to social security of workers.

Key points of the Code:

• Enhanced coverage of provisions by including Inter-State Migrant, Gig workers, Fixed term employees and all sectors of establishments
• National database of Online portals by making the Registration procedure simple and at single platform
• Electronic database to maintain all records and returns
• Uniformity in definition of Wages, Employer, Home based workers, Self-employed workers etc.
• Introducing provisions for Social Security Organization to maintain finance and accounts and frame a budget as well
• The EPF, EPS, and ESI schemes will be financed through contributions from the employer and the employee. In case of EPF, the employer and the employee each will make contributions of 10% of wages
• Provides procedure for re-employment of retrenched workers.

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