THOUGH THE TRIBE OF PEDDLERS selling the recommendations of the Second National Commission on Labour is dwindling rapidly, there are two broad groups of opinion makers who have held on. First, the hard core supporters, who have sold their soul to the wisdom of Washington consensus to liberate the women, children and poor of this country. They see in the Commission`s report the road map to empowerment and in the umbrella legislation the magic weapon to scale that height. With such deep addiction of a faith it is difficult to have a rational debate and redeem their soul. They need to be defeated ideologically and isolated in the labour movement.

The other group is activists, who have experienced the indifference, arrogance and at times, contempt from a section of the organised sector trade unionists. They were denied the democratic space to experiment in organising. Most are yet to be given due respect and recognition for their organising efforts. In their effort to reclaim this democratic space they have built an   ideological cocoon of "unorganized world" in           opposition to organised labour. They need to be discussed and debated with. The Commission`s work needs to be evaluated for their concern and focus. In this brief article, we are making an effort in that direction.

Such a process will make the critique of the Commission`s report sharper and imbued with a perspective that is inclusive of all sections of labour. Moreover, the discourse can become a tool for enabling us to struggle against the ideological prejudices and rigidity that divide the fraternity of labour into organised and unorganised. The trap door laid by the Commission has to be bridged by the organised sector trade unions. It is their responsibility and they cannot fail.

With the immense intellectual capacity and information at its disposal the Commission was expected to perform. First, to develop an analytical framework with a national and labour perspective. Second, to evaluate different strategies to achieve developmental objectives within the globalised economy and chart the path of transition. Third, to evolve an operational principle relevant to the current situation and recommend the changes required in the labour policies, laws, institution and practice for each stages of this transition. Even if one disagreed with the Commission’s view, an intellectually stimulating report will lead to a serious debate. It surely would have deepened the understanding of labour rights in economic development and decent work in global economy. And a possible outcome of such a debate could be a consensus on the framework for negotiation between capital and labour for a development agenda.

It failed. And failed miserably. There is all round disenchantment with the report. The opposition of the labour was expected. But more than that is the deep anger widespread everywhere in all sections of the working people. It has created such a mood of distrust that even specific positive recommendations are viewed with cynicism and suspicion. The recommendations on social security need to be studied in this context.

Right of Social Security

Any realistic proposal for social security has to be rooted in real economy. In an economy where the majority of workers are employed in agriculture and a large section is unemployed, underemployed and non-employed, the social security of such workers are to met by state funding, raised through general taxation. Both, the Study Group on Social Security and the Commission agree that an integrated and comprehensive system of social security system envisages, a three -tier system, a) schemes financed from the exchequer, b) schemes financed by part contribution and part subsidy, and c) schemes financed wholly through contribution.

The approach and the central thrust of the Commission is to pave the way for contributory Social Insurance Schemes and make it more market oriented. This is   evident from the various recommendations on social security:

• No definition of the floor level of social security that the State is required to provide
• No assessment of resource required for a comprehensive social security system, allocation possible from the budget and mechanism for raising additional resources
• Not making the State accountable for social security and absolving it of the responsibility to ratify the ILO Convention on Social Security
•  Reduce the liability and responsibility of the employer in the case of accident compensation and gratuity
• Reduce the medical services under ESI Scheme
•  Allow privatisation of health insurance
•  Allow market-based pension scheme

The report argues that such an approach is feasible and legitimate. This is in consonance with the view of the NDA government for developing a social security net, as the Prime Minister stated, "without putting heavy burden on our budgetary resources - which we do not have". The Prime Minister can find money to subsidise industry, underwrite corporate and market scams and increase unproductive expenditure on internal security, but not for social security. The interest of the working people may not be a priority for the Prime Minister. But for the Commission that was the mandate. With the public expenditure on social security in India being only 1.8 per cent of the GDP in comparison to 4.7 per cent in Sri Lanka and 3.6 per cent in China leave alone the 40 per cent in developed countries, the scope of increase in the budget allocation should have been the focus of  the Commission`s analysis and recommendation. It shamefully did not, reflecting the same bias. They seem to be made from the same clay.

Right to Work

The foundation of a social security system is decent and stable work to every one. As the Study Group observed, the root cause of social insecurity is poverty and that is largely due to the lack of adequate or productive employment opportunity. Adequate and stable income is a must to satisfy the basic needs of the people. But more than that it also contributes to     fulfilling the social security needs.

The Commission recommended, in passing, the need to make the Right to Work a fundamental right. But strangely, such an important proposition was left in a vacuum and was neither argued from the right perspective nor from the developmental perspective. It evaded drawing   the implication and consequence of such inclusion into   fundamental rights on the budgetary, planning and administrative process and giving specific recommendations in each of these areas. The research findings on the  employment programme, both in India and abroad, were not surveyed and evaluated to give specific recommendation on scope, design, monitoring and evaluation of the employment programme.

For a concern that is so fundamental to the work of the Commission, it is not analytically integrated either to the structure of the report or the recommendations. For instance, the integration of State-funded social security for Below Poverty Line workers with the employment programme is possible and can lead to efficient use of resources, creation of assets of value to all, skill development and community empowerment. Besides the rhetoric of pious declaration, the Commission has made no effort to make the right to work operational. The omissions seem almost deliberate.

In its defence, the Commission has taken the plea of not being given the mandate by the government. This reflects a lack of genuine commitment to one’s own viewpoint. The Commission gives the impression that it views employment as integral to the social security system. In that case, it should have gone beyond the mandate and forcefully insisted on a policy framework and programme for employment and made it a necessary condition for building a comprehensive social security system. Alternatively, the Commission could have sought the mandate and made the government concede it by making it an issue of public debate. Independence of a Commission is reflected in the efforts to make an intellectually consistent argument and the political will to seek a legitimate space for it, even against the wishes of the government that appoints it. The Second National Commission on Labour did not exercise either of these options. Even against the opinion of the majority of trade unions, the Commission acquiesced to the terms of reference. Men and women of straw can only provide an eclectic report, which is neither grounded in theory nor in reality.

Right of Livelihood

The Commission has inked hundreds of pages sketching the vulnerable situation of the unorganised labour. If there is one stark reality of globalisation, it is the dispossession of whole sections of people in the developing countries of their rights over land, forest and water by creating a property regime that does not    recognize and respect their customary rights. The working people are becoming encroachers in their own     traditional habitats. This forcible dispossession is leading to large-scale resistance and violence. A major livelihood crisis is in the making. Still the Commission failed to address the right of livelihood with    seriousness.

In the absence of guarantee of employment, the Commission should have categorically and unequivocally upheld the right of livelihood, secured property rights of traditional use of land, forest and water bodies for livelihood and categorically banned unilateral eviction from land and forests. It should have provided the legitimacy and justification for such property rights.

If such property rights are required to be alienated for the purpose of development that is proven to be net beneficial to the people, then it must be done in a humane and equitable manner. The Commission did not even approach the issue from such an angle let alone apply its mind to the major issues of laws, procedures and   institutions that can crystallize these rights in the first instance; the methodology to evaluate different claims over such properties and specific conditions where such rights may be alienated, and when the alienation is necessary, the equitable and social justice oriented process of alienating such rights. The Commission even failed to give a cogent   exposition of the right to livelihood and its existence on the property rights over land, forest and water bodies in a traditional economy.

Rights have become a means for the unorganised workers to assert its claim against the State and in the   society. The right to form unions and the right to    collective bargaining are foundational to the civil and political rights of a worker. Besides, four rights - right to livelihood, right to work, right to social security and right to need-based minimum wage - capture the claims and dimension of the unorganised workers’   movement. We have made here a brief assessment of the Commission`s report in respect of these rights. As is evident, it falls too short to that measure.

In looking for positive assertions here and there in the voluminous report, the political aspect should not be overlooked. The Commission is a part of the political process that has a main function of restricting the rights of that section of the labour, which has acquired the self-capability of asserting them. But, it needs to de-focus this aspect. So the need to focus on social security. One could have still granted genuine intention, if this focusing had led to substantive expansion on that count. In the absence of such a gain, it is not too harsh to call it tokenism.