"India’s new labour bills have huge ramifications for how workers can be hired and fired", 28 September 2020

The Indian parliament’s most recent session cleared bills at an unprecedented speed. But that is not necessarily good news.

The monsoon session of parliament, which was delayed and thus shortened because of the Covid-19 pandemic, cleared three key labour bills on its last day on Sept. 23 with nearly no opposition...

In the absence of such MPs, Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party-led government said “aye” to bills without much deliberation or scrutiny. The three labour codes that were passed, for instance, should have ideally been sent to a standing committee for consultation.

These bills have 411 clauses and 13 schedules, and run into over 300 pages, and affect every person in employment in India...

...The first major change comes in the form of the freedom that employers will have to hire and fire workers. Currently, any establishment with over 100 workers needs permission from the government during any process of retrenchment. This threshold has now been increased to 300.

The industrial relations code, one of the three legislations passed in the upper house, also makes it near impossible for workers to strike. The new law would now require workers to hand in a 60-day notice before striking. In the case of pending proceedings before a legal tribunal, the strike can only happen after 60 days of the completion of such proceedings...