With a shrinking job market for permanent
employment and fixed term contractual employments gaining popularity in
the country, the Code on Social Security, 2019 introduced in the Lok Sabha last
December has been already examined by the Parliament’s Standing Committee on
Labour.
The reported move of the Committee to
universalise social security among some of its other recommendations are
commendable as it can bring some respite to tens of thousands of job seekers.
Even as the Supreme Court of India had
deplored the practice of deploying contract labour in regular, permanent and
perennial work, some management experts have their own ways to when it comes to
engaging employees.
In many employments, permanent posts seem to
be kept unfilled and adhoc employees are hired to the whims and fancies of
managements. Although the adhoc employees may perform the same nature of duties
as permanent employees, they are engaged on a permanently temporary basis. Many
of these adhoc employees are denied the basic social security measures.
Take the recent case of the treated meted out
to a Senior-most ad-hoc Assistant Professor in the Department of English
employed in a Delhi University College since 2014. Last year as she
was expecting her first child, she requested her employer for grant of
maternity leave along with all other eligible benefits under the Maternity Benefit
Act, 1961. There was no response from the College management. Owning to
complications of pregnancy, she reiterated her leave request. The Assistant
Professor was blessed with a daughter prematurely but the College rejected her
request for maternity leave and declined to credit salary during her leave of
absence on the grounds that maternity benefit was unavailable to contractual
employees. She re-joined her duties but soon after, the College terminated her
services. However, the College extended the contractual period of two other
adhoc Assistant Professors junior to her.
She knocked at the doors of Judiciary and a
Division Bench of Delhi High Court observed “declining to grant an extension to
the appellant/petitioner as she had highlighted her need for leave due to her
pregnancy and confinement would tantamount to penalizing a woman for electing
to become a mother while still employed and thus
pushing her into a choiceless situation as
motherhood would be equated with loss of employment. This is violative of the
basic principle of equality in the eyes of law. It would also tantamount to
depriving her of the protection assured under Article 21 of the Constitution of
India of her right to employment and protection of her reproductive rightsâ€.
Directing the College to appoint her forthwith to the post of Assistant
Professor in the English Department on an ad-hoc basis till such time that the
vacant posts are filled up through regular appointment, the Court also imposed
costs amounting to Rs 50,000/- on the College to be paid to the Assistant
Professor.
Well, how many people like the Assistant
Professor can seek judicial intervention? It involves, time, effort, resources
and much more.
Now coming back to the Code on Social
Security, 2019, among others aims to extend the coverage of Employees’ State
Insurance to all establishments employing ten or more employees and to the
employees working in establishments with less than ten employees on voluntary
basis and also to plantations on option basis. The Employees’ Provident Fund,
Employees’ Pension Scheme and Employees Deposit Linked Insurance Scheme is to
be extended to all industries or establishments employing twenty or more
employees and thereby expands the existing coverage. The Code also makes it
mandatory to provide for payment of gratuity in case of Fixed Term Employment
on pro-rata basis even if the period of fixed term contract is less than five
years; to provide for maternity benefit to the woman employee besides
compensation to employees in case of the accidents while commuting from
residence to place of work and vice versa.
The changes recommended in social security
measures is a welcome step, more so because many of the public sector
undertakings, once known as the commanding heights of the economy are today in
disrepair. Many state PSU employees face a desperate situation as a large
number of units have either been declared sick or are facing serious financial
challenges. Many of them are either closed down or at the verge of closure.
Loss of employment and its after effects on the families of such employees is
mind boggling. Disinvestment continues to be the buzzword and most of them are
heading for privatisation. But whether privatisation will solve all the
problems is another story.
That many managements prefer employing women
on account of their skills, better discipline, passive union activity and easy
supervision in a way paves way for her economic independence. But many of them
continue to suffer in silence for a plethora of reasons best known to them.
Nonetheless, the Code on Social Security when implemented in the right earnest
can bring much relief to some of the most labour intensive sectors of the
country.
