Report on the Conference on Contract Labour in India: Issues in Law and Public Policy’ 21st April, 2014 Convention centre, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Conference on Contract Labour in India: Issues in Law and Public Policy’

21^st April, 2014

Convention centre,

Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi

Report

The Centre for the Study of Law and Governance, JNU, New Delhi  organized the one day conference on “Contract Labour in India: Issues in Law and Public Policy”, at the Convention centre, of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, on 21^st April,2014.

            Prof. Amit Prakash, Chairperson, Centre for the Study of Law and Governance (CSLG) welcomed everyone to the conference which started at sharp 10 am. Professor S K Sopory, Vice Chancellor of the Jawaharlal Nehru University inaugurated the conference. In his inaugural address Professor Sopory emphasized on the difference between the issues of outsourcing and contract labour and the necessity for distinguishing between the laws for each of the two. He gave JNU example in the area of contract labour working and the issue of social security for the contract workers which have also been actively advocated by some JNU faculty and students in the campus. Prof. Sopory stated that he expected that the conference would come out with some answers on the vexatious issues within the contract labour system, especially on the laws which are rather restrictive in scope. The keynote address at the inaugural session was delivered by Ms. Ramapriya Gopalakrishnan, Advocate at Madras High Court and ILO National consultant. Ms. Ramapriya Gopalakrishnan presentation sought to engage critically with the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 especially on the question whether the Act was adequate to prevent exploitation of the labour in the informal sector.  The keynote address was followed by a presentation on “Challenges of Contract Labour – The Role of ILO” by Mr. Anandan P. Menon, Programme Officer, ILO DWT for South Asia & Country Office for India.

            The First session which followed the inaugural one started at about 11:20 am and was chaired by Dr. Alakh N. Sharma, Director, Institute of Human development. This session brought out different perspectives on the emerging labour relations in the form of contract labour. Prof Abhijit Sen, Member, Planning Commission, presented the government perspective on the ‘Economics of contract labour’. The historical perspective was presented by Dr Prabhu Mahapatra,  Associate Professor, Delhi University. The union perspective was given by Mr Swadesh Dev Roye, National Secretary, CITU. This session also had delegates from contract workers’ unions which were still struggling to establish their legal identity. Mr Ajay Swami and Ms Shivani from the Delhi Metro Kamgar Union shared their experiences as union workers of contract workers with the participants in the conference.

The first session was followed by lunch which was organized at the Convention centre cafeteria.

The afternoon session which started at 2:30 pm was chaired by Prof Niraja Gopal Jayal, of the CSLG. In this session Prof B T Kaul, Professor, Law Centre, Delhi University gave a detailed historical account of contract labour laws in India and its judicial interpretations.  A presentation was made on how to ensure legitimate dues to contract labour in good governance by Dr Sanjay Upadhyay of the V.V. Giri national labour institute. This session also had a presenter from the employers’ side to present the other side of view. Mr. Michael Dias of the All India & Delhi employers association elaborated on the need to keep the employment relations flexible for the economic success of an enterprise.  Ms. Rakhi Sehgal from the National Forum against Contract Work in her presentation however strongly countered the views of Mr Dias and argued that the demand for flexibility by the employers was to exploit the workers in order to raise their profit margin. At the end of this session Mr Pankaj Kumar, Presiding officer, Labour court, Ghaziabad, laid down his views on how to evolve a balance approach at the workplace by taking the interests of different interest groups in mind.

             Both the sessions were followed by question answer interlude where the participants actively participated in discussions and raised pointed questions to different speakers.

            At the end of the conference, Dr Jaivir Singh, Associate Professor and the conference organizer rounded up the full day proceedings in his brief intervention. He viewed that any employment relationship was based on ‘trust’ on which both the employer and the workers have to invest upon for long term. However in the upcoming contract labour system due to the very temporary nature of engagement and legal ambiguities involved neither the employer nor a contract worker was ready to invest in the relationship. Thus in the present contract workplace only ‘employment was there and no ‘relationship’. Dr Singh viewed that because of the technicalities of the legal relationships associated with the use of contract labour and as the associated rights, policies and laws on contract labour are opaquely known and there is little deliberation on the issue; this conference was needed to initiate debate, sharing research and encouraging dialogue between different actors related to this upcoming employment relation; which has been successfully achieved. He thanked all the speakers, participants, student volunteers and especially ICSSR and JNU for funding the whole event and making it a grand success.

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