Labour Ministry to introduce bill on wage code in next session

Bill seeks to empower Centre to fix minimum wage across all sectors in the country; govt concludes talks with unions, industry

The labour ministry will seek Cabinet approval for the Wage Code Bill, which seeks to empower the Centre to set a minimum wage across all sectors in the country, in the next few weeks and will try to have it passed in Parliament’s coming winter session.

Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya on Wednesday said discussions over the Bill between the government, trade unions and industry bodies had concluded.

A group of ministers will meet on Thursday to decide the final shape of the Bill. Apart from Dattatreya, the group consists of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, Power Minister Piyush Goyal and Petroleum Minister Dharmendra Pradhan.

The Bill provides for a floor rate of national wage that will be mandatory for all states. This will provide a boost to the Centre’s recent initiative of increasing the minimum wage of central government employees by 42 per cent.

“We are trying to create a mechanism for a minimum wage for all sectors,” Dattatreya said.

The Centre and states now set minimum wages for different categories of workers, in their respective jurisdictions. The Centre wants to club around 40 labour laws into five and all wage-related laws will be part of a wage code.

The labour ministry is likely to push the codes on wages and industrial relations when the the Parliament resumes next week.

CODING WAGES

• Union Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya said tripartite discussions over the Bill among the government, trade unions and industry bodies concluded
   
• A group of ministers will meet on Thursday to decide on the final shape of the Bill