Let's look at ways we can provide labour benefits without union red tape
Are the Provisions of the Trade Union Act, first drafted in 1926 relevant in today’s fast moving technology driven age?
More
and more labour actions are being directly resolved by groups of employees
negotiating with company management, outside the framework of Labour Union Law.
Both in India and abroad, unionized emplyees are working in areas of business that are
shrinking (given the advent of earth movers, robotics, artificial intelligence,
Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and e-commence).
New technology
intensive businesses are rarely unionized particularly as the half-life of
technology is considered to average around six years. That means that someone
who gets a job operating a new software technology will be halfway to being
unemployed after just six years on the job. The speed at which business moves
today has no room for moribund union procedures. Government departments of
labour will also need to reinvent themselves, finding new groups to serve in
the unorganized labour segment.
Then
there is the fact that businesses prefer to deal with workers as self-employed
businesses. Uber and Airbnb are good examples of small businesses stepping up
to replace employees, many of whom were unionized in the past.
Does
that mean that these new self-employed workers have no recourse? Uber Drivers
and Google employees both organized successful agitations in the recent past.
The recently published book, Labour Law for the Rank & Filer (Building
Solidarity While Staying Clear of the Law)” by Straughton Lynd & Stanley
Gross cites the effective issue-based agitations organized by Uber drivers and
Google employees in the USA*1.
An
article in the New York Times on the book strikes a cautionary note, It says, ”While
applauding the grass-roots organizing that the book has helped inspire, union
leaders have cautioned that solidarity unions can be exhausting for workers to
sustain and that they leave workers vulnerable to company retaliation.” This
problem can be mitigated by Worker Welfare organizations coming in as service
providers to manage employee data, interface with the media and advise on legal
issues.
Finally,
the numbers alone indicate that change is likely. In the United States for
example, some 30 percent of public employees are unionized whereas less than 6
percent are unionized. In India too, most unionized employees are in government
departments, public sector companies and banks. Private sector unions are few
and far between. The Indian (BJP) government is already trying to streamline and redraft a proposed code on Social Security Benefits for workers. If you want to comment you can do so no later than October 25, 2019. For more on this visit: https://www.citizenznews.com/2019/10/we-have-only-till-october-25th-2019-to.html
Many government (unionized) functions are now being outsourced. In Kerala, if you need a copy of your land
records you are now required to visit one of hundreds of “Akshaya Centers” that
provide service for a nominal service fee of Rs 35. Other services like
photocopies are also available at a set price. This means that overstaffed
government departments that are unionized will over time shrink as less new
employees are taken on.
If
unions continue to lose relevance (and it certainly seems likely that they will),
what are the functions of unions that we need to retain and how might we retain
them?
1.
Reform and expand the labour adjudication process: Whether there are
unions or not there will always be labour disputes at the organizational level,
there will also be disciplinary issues at the individual level. We already have
a system of labour courts, and we need to add to those mediation functions and
possibly mandatory arbitration. While unionized workers may receive faster
service or have extra privileges, unorganized labourers could qualify for
access to this process through a qualification process.
2.
Reach out to unorganized labour through a standardized
registration process:
Some states already have a process for migrant labourers who can provide acceptable
forms of ID and then receive a labour card that qualifies them to receive limited
health services at government hospitals and empaneled private facilities. There
could be an incident specific registration process managed by District Labour
Officers that funnels these individuals into counselling, prior to determining
what form of adjudication is possible or warranted.
3.
Groups or individual organized and
unorganized workers who pay into a State or National Pension Plan should be
able to access the Labour dispute resolution process as they are already displaying
a commitment to being responsible members of the labour community,
Even
way back in the Pre-Socratic age the Philosopher Heraclitus warned us that “Change
is the only constant.” Today we know that change is not just constant but it’s
also speeding up constantly. We would do well to remember that this principle
certainly applies to the Trade Union Act and Labour Management as well. Labour
advocates are advised therefore that if we do not manage this change proactively,
change will be thrust upon the labour community with consequences that all concerned
will dislike.
*1. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/business/economy/labor-book.html
https://www.citizenznews.com/2019/10/we-have-only-till-october-25th-2019-to.html
Also in this series:
https://www.citizenznews.com/2019/10/can-unions-become-more-relevant-by.html
https://www.citizenznews.com/2019/10/we-have-only-till-october-25th-2019-to.html
Also in this series:
https://www.citizenznews.com/2019/10/can-unions-become-more-relevant-by.html
Written by Pravin J P Arapurakal, Editor, CitizenzNews
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