PM Modi Inaugurates Indian Labour Conference, Launches National Career Service
Source: Focus News
Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the 46th Indian Labour Conference in the national capital on Monday.
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The Conference is likely to witness a stormy session on several issues as some labour unions are set to protest against certain proposed labour law amendments
"We will definitely lodge our protest against certain proposed labour law amendments that will dilute social security of workers and go against their interest during deliberations at ILC," All India Trade Union Congress Secretary D L Sachdev.
He further said, "Trade unions are determined and unanimous on certain issues raised by them at different fora. We have decided to go on strike on September 2 to express our strong protest. The central trade unions will not change the position taken by them."
Read more: http://focusnews.com/business/live-pm-narendra-modi-inaugurates-46th-indian-labour-conference/86193/
The 10-cent version:
Modi wants to merge the existing 44 industrial unions into 4 but is opposed in this by most of the unions, including his own party's labor union (unions in India are often integrated into political parties in ways that would be difficult to imagine in the US).
Currently, a company with 100 or fewer workers can announce layoffs unilaterally while larger ones must obtain government permission first; Modi wants to increase that cap to 300, as well as allow something like what we call card check in the US (this would be a significant impediment to union formation compared to now, which is basically that workers in many industries can spontaneously unionize simply by announcing it and obtaining a political party's support).
The "National Career Service" thing is a bit more complicated: it's basically a huge employment exchange that matches qualified workers with employers. To US ears that may sounds strange ("isn't that monster.com?"
, but hiring someone in India is a very long, complicated, drawn out process that involves dealing with multiple levels of government and this is an attempt to streamline some of that.
The direction Indian labor law ends up heading is going to be very important for the US economy in coming years, so I thought I'd post this.
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