Labour Bill to see new alignments, BJP comes to UPA rescue

The winter session of Parliament is likely to see new political alignments over the sensitive issue of labour law amendment.

The government is likely to get the (unsolicited) support of the BJP while the Left parties, key UPA supporter, will play the unrelenting Opposition.

The Cabinet has cleared an amendment to the Labour Laws (Exemption from Furnishing Returns and maintaining Registers by Certain Establishments) Amendments and Miscellaneous Provision Bill, 2005, which is before the Rajya Sabha Standing Committee.

The Bill will exempt establishments with up to 40 workers from giving details of the employees to the government. They will be allowed to use simplified forms and won't need to maintain registers of contract labourers.

The government is expected to place the Bill in the coming session. The Left has made it clear it will oppose the Bill.

"We have told the government we will vote against the Bill. The International Labour Organization (ILO) has restricted the threshold limit for this concession to 10 employees. This is also the limit in some states. We will not allow any increase," said Rajya Sabha member and CITU National Secretary Tapan Sen.

The BJP says the opposite. "We will support the amendments. There should be some minimum reforms," party spokesman Prakash Javadekar told Business Standard.

The logic: Many small establishments will be exempted from inspector raj. In some ways, the government's decision to go ahead with the BJP's help will signal a departure from policy and could mean acceptance of its support in other areas, including the Indo-US civil nuclear agreement.