May Day brings little solace, as Indian workers stare at longer work hours

For the first time in one and a half centuries, workers will have to toil 72 hours a week in at least five states as govts try to restart production amid the nationwide lockdown

When the first law governing factories in India was introduced under British rule in the 19th century, workers got a set of rights related to their working conditions, one of which included a cap on working hours in a week.

The Factory Act of 1881 set the maximum number of working hours in a week at 72 (12 hours a day if a person worked six days in a week). It was also partly because of the pressure that British authorities faced from mill owners back home in Lancashire, who feared that they were losing out to competition coming from the Indian textile industry because of lower cost of production.

For the first time in around one-and-a-half centuries, Indian workers will have to work for 72 hours in a week (up from 48 hours a week) as five states — Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Punjab — have amended the Factories Act of 1948 through executive orders to effect this change.

To be sure, the states have said that this is a temporary measure as production at factories and mines have been impacted because of the nationwide lockdown imposed to curb the spread of Covid-19.

India’s first factory regulation also coincided with an uprising in the working class across the world. 

Significantly, May Day, also known as the International Workers’ Day in many countries or Labour Day, originated with a movement of workers in 1884 when workers in the United States and Canada demanded an eight-hour workday. By 1886, the movement gathered pace and resulted in riots, after protesters and police clashed at Haymarket Square in Chicago. International Workers’ Day is celebrated on May 1 to commemorate this struggle.

 

 

The concept of eight-hour workday was based on the principle of ‘work-life balance’ – eight hours of work, eight hours of recreation and eight hours of sleep.

The world is witnessing an unprecedented crisis because of Covid-19, which has brought the movement of humans and machines to a standstill. 

In a report released on Wednesday, the International Labour Organization estimated a 4.5 per cent drop in working hours (about 130 million full-time jobs) across the globe in January-March 2020, compared to the previous quarter. The scenario for the second quarter looks worse with a 10.5 per cent slump expected in working hours, equaling 305 million jobs, compared to October-December 2019.

To compensate for the loss in production, state governments have started increasing the permissible hours of work — a measure not been taken by other countries so far. India also had one of the most stringent lockdowns, leading to soaring unemployment levels. Labour is a concurrent subject under the Constitution and states are empowered to change laws.

The trend was started by the Congress-ruled Rajasthan government through an executive order on April 11, which allowed factories to employ workers for 12 hours a day, up from 8 hours a day under the present law. The order stated that factories will now be able to operate at full capacity with “60-65 per cent of normal manpower”. “Our initiative was lauded by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a meeting with chief ministers on April 27 and he asked other states to follow the example,” Rajasthan’s Labour Secretary Niraj Kumar Pawan told Business Standard.

However, to ensure the welfare of workers, the Rajasthan government said the additional hours of work will be treated as “overtime” and workers will be given double the wages for this period. Congress-ruled Punjab government followed suit.

While some other state governments emulated Rajasthan in increasing working hours they didn’t allow doubling of wages for the extra hours. 

Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh said workers will be paid in proportion to their working hours. In fact, unlike Punjab, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh invoked a provision under the law that can be only used during a “public emergency” due to “war or external aggression or internal disturbances.” The Rajasthan government’s notification fails to mention the provision used to bring this change into effect.

“Isn’t this a public emergency? When was the last time we saw closure of places of worship? Even during the Second World War all worship places were open but not now. The Gujarat government feels that this is a public emergency and we invoked Section 5 of the Factories Act,” Gujarat’s Industrial Safety and Health Department’s Director PM Shah said. He added that the government thought it best to increase wages “proportionately”, which was better than giving wages for eight hours of work and termed it a “win-win” for industry and workers.

“May Day is marked as a victory of workers in getting legislation in place for eight hours of work day. In India, employers already flout the law and workers have to work overtime without getting additional pay,” Centre of Indian Trade Unions’ (CITU’s) National President K Hemalatha said, adding that workers will be put under “immense” pressure. “Besides, this will take a toll on their mental health,” she added.

People in India already work longer than average, compared to global peers, according to the National Statistical Office’s (NSO’s) first periodic labour force survey (PLFS) conducted in 2017-18.

It showed that a majority of workers in India worked for more than 48 hours a week — higher than the ILO’s prescribed global limit. On an average, workers in cities worked 53-54 hours and those in villages worked 46-47 hours in a week. In comparison, the global mean of hours worked per week was 43, with significantly lower numbers in developed regions.

“The move will put women workers at a disadvantage, especially in sectors where they are employed in huge numbers such as garments, pharmaceuticals, food processing, among others. This will create a gender-based discrimination as it will become difficult for them to manage such long hours at factories due to pressure from within their families,” K R Shyam Sundar, labour economist and professor of human resource management at XLRI, Jamshedpur, said.

He added that the Factories Act, 1948, had provisions to allow overtime work and the government should have let industries take advantage of that. 

In 1922, the Factories Act was amended to reduce the hours of work to 60 in a week, from 72 after India became signatory to an ILO convention in 1919. Though all countries which signed it had to reduced their working hours to 48 hours a week, India was given an exemption to keep it at 60 hours. The Great Depression of 1929 led to a series of strikes as working conditions across the world deteriorated. The Royal Commission on Labour, led by H H Whitley, which submitted its report in 1931, suggested a reduction in weekly hours to 54 and maximum hours of work to nine. This became a part of the Factories Act of 1934.

But because of the Second World War (1939-45) the British allowed non-seasonal factories to operate 60 hours a week as production took a hit.

It was B R Ambedkar, who became the Labour Member to the Viceroy’s Council in 1942, who championed the cause of an eight-hour workday and 48-hour work shift in a week in India. Since then, this provision has been etched into India’s labour laws — the ones that the states are amending to deal with the pandemic.

In the Sixth session of the Indian Labour Conference, which came to be known as the Labour Parliament of India, held in November 1945, the Labour Department headed by Ambedkar said in a note that it was both unjust and unwise to deny the workers a reasonable amount of spare time away from the factory, which was indispensable for the building up of citizenship and for the maintenance of physical efficiency. "It emphasised that the present was an opportune moment for taking up this question because there was a need for giving relief to factory workers who had been put to a great strain during the war. Moreover, shorter hours would lead to greater employment," it noted.