Centre, Yogi differ on workers’ welfare: FM Sitharaman

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, May 14

In what appears to be a rebuke to some states for suspending labour laws, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, during a press conference, established the Centre’s pro-worker credentials.

Several pro-labour reforms were in the pipeline and will be announced after the Labour Code was cleared by Parliament, she said.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman highlighted all labour welfare measures that have been jettisoned by several state governments, especially Uttar Pradesh, that have suspended laws relating even to maternity benefit, secure workplace for women staff and minimum wages.

Without mentioning the tweaking in labour laws by some states, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asserted that workers’ welfare was on top of the Government’s agenda.

Sitharaman said the Centre was planning to remove the inter-state disparity in minimum wages.

“We want to make minimum wages universal. There is a regional disparity in minimum wages. We are trying to get over the problem by having a national floor-wage concept that can be accepted by all the states,” she said.

This is in direct contradiction to the Uttar Pradesh government suspending all provisions related to minimum wages.

The Finance Minister admitted that most measures enumerated by her were part of the Labour Code pending in the Parliament, yet she chose to list them at a press conference to detail PM Modi’s Rs 20-lakh crore package as an example of the Centre’s commitment to “making it better for the workers”.

Other steps include compulsory appointment letters, gratuity to all, annual health check-ups and retraining retrenched workers. These were the measures put in abeyance by the Yogi government.

Sitharaman also said all occupations should be open to women, including night working rights with safeguards.