Differences have surfaced in central trade unions over a bill for curbing multiplicity of trade unions in industrial establishments.
Parliament will take up an amendment to the Trade Union Act in its winter session begining on November 19. The bill was introduced in the last session, but it could not be passed due to paucity of time.
If passed, it will fulfill a major demand of the industry and result in a major loss of power for the central trade unions.
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The move, which has attracted some debate among central unions, seeks to encourage the growth of rank and file leadership in plant unions.
The bill also seeks to curb the prevailing practice of central unions nominating their own representatives as union office bearers.
Since most of these representatives are not employees of the given industrial establishment, it often creates a strong feeling of resentment among employers as well as a section of employees.
The amendment also seeks to make plant unions more responsible by laying down norms on accounting standards and making regular elections mandatory. At present, elections are not held in a large number of plant unions which are more often than not controlled by central unions such as INTUC and AITUC from outside.
The government has managed to persuade a substantial section of the central union leadership to agree to the amendment. But voices of dissent are still heard among leaders of central unions.
On their part, central unions have been putting pressure on the government to amend the Bonus Act to enhance the annual bonus limit from the prevailing level of Rs 3,500. Most unions would like to peg the level at over Rs 5,000 so as to cover a larger section of employees and workers, which has been opposed by representatives of employers and industry associations.
Central unions are, however, worried that these initiatives may be jeopardised if the debate on the Jain panel report raises a furore and takes away much of Parliaments time. The winter session begins from November 19.
Two recent ordinances including one on raising employee contribution to provident fund from 10 to 12 per cent of basic salary is also awaiting the Parliaments approval. The government also plans to move a bill to replace an ordinance amending the Gratuity Act which raised the gratuity limit from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh.
Meanwhile, the labour ministry is planning several amendments to the Minimum Wages Act and Agriculture Workers Act for the benefit of unorganised labour.
The issue of amending the Minimum Wages Act will come up before the Cabinet soon, sources said.
The proposal for amending the Minimum Wages Act has been pending for a long time. At its last meeting a year back, the Indian Labour Congress (ILC) had recommended that minimum wages should be revised by state governments every two years.
At present, several states are implementing minimum wages at levels fixed in 1994 or earlier. There is also a wide disparity in wages between various states, regions within a state and among different industries. Though the ILC has advocated rationalisation of the minimum wage policy to bring about some kind of uniformity, the government is yet to take a final view on the issue.