The Supreme Court of India has given an important judgment regarding the Railway parcel porters working on contract labour. Justice J Venkatachaliah in the case of National Federation of Railway Porters, Vendors and Bearers v/s Union of India and others has issued directions to Union of India and its Railway Administrative Units on 09/05/1995 that `the work of Railway Parcel Porters on contract labour should be absorbed permanently as regular Railway Parcel Porters of those stations`.

The court has also directed that `when the Railway Parcel Porters are appointed on permanent basis, they shall be entitled to get from the dates of their absorption the minimum scale of pay or wages and other service benefits which the regularly appointed Railway Parcel Porters are already getting`.

The Judgment also says, `In the matter of absorption of Railway Parcel Porters on contract labour as permanent and regular Railway Parcel Porters, the persons who have worked for longer periods as contract labour shall be preferred to those who are put in shorter periods of work`.

Hundreds of Railway Parcel Porters were working in Railway Stations of Northern Railway, North Eastern Railway and Eastern Railway on contract since 1972. Some of them were working since 1980 and a few of them were employed in 1985. In this view, all of them have completed more then 240 days of continued service. When they were being denied the permanent job and the same salary which is being paid to permanent workers, they filed a writ petition in the court under Article 32 of the Constitution of India.

The court ordered a detailed enquiry into the allegations of contract workers. The Assistant Labour Commissioner (Central), Ministry of Labour, Government of India submitted a report on August 31, 1993.

The enquiry revealed that the writ petitioners have been working as contract labour Railway Parcel Porters continuously for a number of years. The work of parcel handling is permanent and perennial in its nature and it could keep all the petitioners - parcel porters ­continuously engaged. In certain Railway Stations, the parcel handling work is done by Railway Parcel Porters, regularly and permanently employed by Railways. The enquiry also found out that contract labour for parcel handling is done by labour supplied to Railways through societies or private contractors.

After examining the finding of this report the court reaffirmed its earlier order in the matter of absorption of contract labour by a public undertaking on a permanent basis. The order clearly states, All the labourers who have initially engaged through contractors but have been continuously working with the respondent for the last 10 years on different jobs assigned to them in spite of the replacementchange of the contractors, shall be absorbed by the respondent as their regular employees subject to being found medically fit and if they are below 58 years of age, which is the age of superannuation under the respondent`.