All You Need to Know about the 17th APRM and Indian Labour Codes

Context

Recently, at the 17th Asia and the Pacific Regional Meeting (APRM) of the International Labour Organization (ILO), which was held in Singapore, international workers' organizations condemned India's labour laws, including 4 new labour codes.

Probable Question

Given widespread criticism of India’s four Labour Codes, do you think that these codes will encourage job opportunities, investments and justice for employees simultaneously? Analyse.

Key Highlights of 17th APRM(Asia and Pacific Regional Meeting)

• The tripartite agreements between employees, employers, and the government is broken by India's new labour laws, which also offer companies a free hand.
• The new laws have given employers the authority to conduct inspections, which poses a danger to the nation's tripartite structure.
• Other Challenges 
  • The world's greatest young population resides in India.
  • The nation is seeing a boom in technology and entrepreneurship, with start-ups and small enterprises proliferating all over the place.
  • 90% of the workforce is employed in the unorganised sector, and there are ongoing issues with low pay and unfavourable working conditions.
  • Employees, businesses, economies, communities, and notably micro, small, and medium-sized firms are all negatively impacted by declining productivity growth.

Also Read: What is the Global Hunger Index and Why is India Trailing ?

India’s G20 Presidency and Food Security

Recommendations

• Decent Jobs: For the economy to grow, there must be full and productive employment and decent jobs.
• Skill: Recognising the need for efficient and demand-driven skill development, as well as persistent skills problems.
  • By developing and supporting employability, sustainable development, productivity growth, and economic prosperity, lifelong learning benefits governments, employers, and employees.
  • It is important to better utilize soft, core, entrepreneurial, and digital skills.
  • Using tools like the E-Shram portal to identify unorganized sector workers and prioritize their needs
• ESIC's expansion of health insurance aims to increase universal social security, which reduces inequality.
  • Approximately 29 crore unorganized sector workers in our nation have registered on the E-Shram website as of this writing.

Singapur’s Progressive Wage Model(Best Practice)

• The strategy offers a road map for increasing lower-paid workers' wages at a sustainable rate while preventing job losses, which could negatively impact workers' quality of life.
• This is accomplished by rising compensation in parallel with productivity growth that is attained through employee upskilling and business transformation.
• Over 8 in 10 full-time lower-wage workers will be included in the Progressive Wage Model by 2023.
• By increasing real income at the 20th percentile of residents who are full-time employed by 2.7% annually from 2016 to 2021 as opposed to the median's 2.1% annual growth, this strategy has helped to close the income gap.

News Source: The Hindu

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/ilo-meet-centres-labour-policies-draw-flak-from-workers-groups/article66230219.ece

https://www.ilo.org/global/meetings-and-events/regional-meetings/asia/aprm-17/media-centre/WCMS_863286/lang--en/index.htm

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