`Tokenism`, `jinxed`, `denied opportunity`, `missed    opportunity` and `lopsided` are some of the adjectives used by various writers in this issue of `Labour File` to describe the phenomenon of the Second National Commission on Labour. These are symptomatic of the public opinion. An overwhelming majority of workers` organisations in India has rejected the recommendations of the Second NCL unequivocally. A few among the trade unions uphold that the whole report need not be dumped as anti-labour. However, a spirited support, clamouring for `give me more`, has come from an unexpected (or expected?) source, the employers and their associations.

The report, which was submitted by the Commission on June 19, 2002, contains definitive suggestions on `rationalisation of labour laws` and a half-hearted    appeal for an `Umbrella Legislation for Workers in the Unorganised Sector`, the two mandates on which it was constituted in October 1999. Basing itself on the presumption that gloablisation is here to stay and the enterprises to remain competitive in the global market is to protect the nation`s interest in a globalised world, the Commission proposes radical suggestions in laws governing industrial relations in the country in order to make enterprises competitive.

In place of central laws relating to industrial relations, the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, the Trade Unions Act 1926 and the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, and similar laws in the states, the Commission proposes one, a Comprehensive Law on Labour Management Relations applicable to enterprises employing 20 or more workers, two, the Small Enterprises (Employment Relations) Act and three, Model Standing Orders for enterprises employing workers between 20 and 50. The Commission takes away the special privileges guaranteed under the Trade Unions Act, provides for easy exit of enterprises and greater freedom for enterprises to hire and fire workers and couch everything in a utopian principle of consensus within enterprises. It further scales down the rights of workers in small enterprises.

The Commission suggests a `Draft Law of Wages`, repealing existing laws relating to wages like the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, the Payment of Wages Act,1936, the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976, the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965 and the Wage Boards in order to free enterprises from the hassles arising out of disputes based on provisions under these acts.

A general law, `Hours of Work Leave and Working Conditions at the Workplace Act` is intended to replace a host of laws relating to the subject including the Factories Act, 1948, the Mines Act, 1952, the Building and other Construction Workers Act, 1996, the Beedi and Cigar Workers Act, 1966, the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, the Inter State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979 and many welfare Acts. These changes       provide for easier contractualistion of work, longer working hours and night work for women. The Commission has proposed `The Occupational Health and Safety Bill`, but it has been put under labour administration. The Commission refrains from tampering with laws relating to social security, but proposes its privatisation by emphasising on third party insurance.

The Commission proposes an `Unorganised Workers (Employment and Welfare) Bill`, purportedly, to bring in for the first time, casual workers, self-employed and      subsistence economy-based workers into the regime of labour laws. Nevertheless, the effort pales in scale to the effort to make labour flexible in the organised sector. Perhaps, the Commission did not want to amplify the rigidity of the labour market.

Trade unions` antipathy towards the Second National Labour Commission rest on this easy capitulation to the logic of globalisation and the simplistic approach in the dismantling of labour jurisprudence in the country.  The rule of capital has been sanctified and justice denied to workers.

We are launching a new column, `South Asia`, from this issue onwards with the objective of bringing to our  readers labour news from our neighbours.