The AITUC demanded the central government convene the long overdue Indian Labour Conference immediately and discuss threadbare the necessity of the proposed labour law changes with the trade unions and employers.
Gig workers are on Covid frontline, they need legal rights and security May 1, 2021, 10:40 PM IST
Alok Prasanna Kumar is Senior Resident Fellow at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.
The second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic has once again forced state governments to impose lockdowns across India’s major cities. People are working from home again, and shops and restaurants are shutting down to counter the seemingly unstoppable rise in Covid infections and deaths across the country. In this context, platform workers who provide their services through apps are again proving to be frontline workers in helping fight the pandemic.
With mobility limited, urban Indians are finding out how valuable door-step delivery services, especially in the context of food, groceries, medicines et al, actually are. While we value the services provided on the apps, do we adequately value the service providers the platform workers themselves?
May Day 2021: What Has (Not) Changed Since the Pandemic Ravaged Livelihoods of Workers
Despite the government passing several laws, hurting the hard-earned labour rights over centuries, workers are staring at an uncertain phase during which neither old labour laws nor the new codes are effectively relevant.
A migrant worker runs behind a truck as others try to board it to return to their villages after India ordered a 21-day nationwide lockdown to limit the spreading of coronavirus disease, in Ghaziabad, March 26, 2020. Photo: Reuters/Adnan Abidi
Rights01/May/2021
This is the second May Day during COVID-19 and hence as dark as it was in 2020, if not darker. For several reason, it is darker in many senses for the working class. Let us briefly review what happened post-May Day 2020.
For migrants, hunger deadlier than Covid Labour economists have highlighted how the loss of work and the absence of govt support are forcing people to leave their workplaces
Aslam Ansari has had no work for the past four days.
The migrant worker wants to go back home not for fear of catching Covid but to escape starvation.
The tailor and his family of six live in a one-room dwelling close to Kalwa police station in Thane, near Mumbai. On Thursday, the family from Dumri block in Giridih, Jharkhand, had rations to last just three to four days.
“Once the food runs out, we’ll return to Jharkhand. I have tried very hard; there’s no work now,” said Aslam, who worked at a factory, stitching clothes for small children and earning about Rs 15,000 a month.