Unions reject proposal to offer options on health insurance

Trade unions including BJP-backed Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh today rejected a proposal to provide an option to workers between Employees' State Insurance (ESI) scheme and health insurance offered by private companies.
The central trade unions strongly opposed the proposal during a tripartite consultation on the Employees' State Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2015, which was chaired by Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya here today.
"There is no explanation regarding as to why the amendment is required. There is no rationale behind this proposal. We outrightly reject this proposal." BMS Secretary Ajit Shripad Kulkarni said during the meeting.
The meeting was attended by stakeholders including trade unions, employers representatives, state governments officials and official of different central ministries.

The minister has now called for another tripartite meeting on the bill and asked the stakeholders to come up with their point of view, which can be substantiated.
The present bill was drafted after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had made an announcement regarding providing option to formal sector workers to choose between ESI and other such products available in the market in this year's Budget speech.

"It has been remarked that both EPF and ESI have hostages, rather than clients. With respect to ESI, the employee should have the option of choosing either ESI or a Health Insurance product, recognised by the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDA)," Jaitley had said in his speech.

During the meeting, All India Trade Union Congress Secretary and member of ESIC board Amarjeet Kaur said: "The ESI scheme is a social security and not a product. The proposal is in contravention with recommendations of the Indian Labour Conference on social security. ILC has recommended strengthening of the ESI scheme."
"If there are better services available than ESI scheme, the workers will themselves go for it. There is nothing better than ESI available in market," she added.
The unions had earlier as well rejected the same proposal during Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) meeting in April.
At present, ESI scheme has around two crore subscribers and it covers nearly eight crore beneficiaries under its health insurance.

The employers representatives supported the proposed amendment and asked to do a pilot project before amending the law for the purpose.