Incorporates 13 central laws, focusing on improving workplace safety, health, and working conditions.
- Aim: To balance the twin objectives of safeguarding worker rights and safe working conditions, and creating a business-friendly regulatory environment.
- Key Provisions
- Unified Registration: A uniform threshold of 10 employees is set for electronic registration.
- Extension to Hazardous Work: The Government can extend the Code's provisions to any establishment, even with one employee, engaged in hazardous or life-threatening occupations.
- Wider Definition of Migrant Workers: The definition of inter-state migrant workers (ISMW) now covers workers employed directly, through contractors, or migrate on their own.
- Women's Employment: Women can work in all types of establishments and during night hours (before 6AM, beyond 7PM) with consent and safety measures.
- National Occupational Safety & Health Advisory Board: A single tripartite advisory board replaces six earlier boards to set national safety and health standards across sectors, ensuring uniformity and quality.
- Institutional oversight
- Safety committee to be constituted by factories with 500+ workers, construction units (250+ workers), and mines (100+) workers with employer and worker representatives.
- Welfare officer to be appointed in units where 250 or more workers are ordinarily employed.
- National occupational safety and health advisory board (tripartite body) to be constituted by central government to set national safety and health standards
- Contract Labour: Norms apply to contractors with 50+ workers (earlier 20), and employers are allowed to engage contract labour even in defined core activities such as sanitation, subject to conditions.
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Conclusion
The new Labour Codes represent a major reform in India's labour system by balancing worker welfare with business efficiency. They simplify compliance, improve safety, and ensure fair wages, while promoting a more transparent and growth-oriented economy.
