Welfare Funds Likely For Home Workers

Labour secretary L D Mishra recently told the `Business Standard' that the government would rather set up welfare funds for home-based workers on the lines of the Beedi workers welfare fund, because a law might be difficult to implement.

We would like to set up welfare funds for workers in the food-processing, garment and agarbatti sector, where a cess is collected from employers to give benefits to these workers, Mishra said.

An estimated 50-60 lakh people are employed on an informal basis in these three sectors, with women comprising about half that population, labour analysts say.

But senior Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) officials who met Mishra about a fortnight ago confirmed there was no positive response on the revival of an old bill, seeking the protection and welfare of home-based workers.

Renana Jhabvala, a senior SEWA official, said since SEWA had been in the forefront of the fight to recognise workers in the informal sector, a delegation had met Mishra to revive the 1988 bill. This bill had mainly called for a minimum wage, a provident fund, identity cards and social security benefits.

Jhabvala said while Mishra agreed there must exist a minimum wage for all workers, he said it might be difficult to find an adequate mechanism to implement such a wage.

Jhabvala said the secretary's decision was a good beginning, but that the government should not lose sight of the real goal