By Indraneel Pinnamshetty
On Wednesday, the Union Cabinet made strides on the long-stalled labour laws. It has approved the new wage code bill which will ensure minimum wage (A bit of context on its implications. Because of its total obliteration, the second paragraph looks like a leap in the dark) by integrating four labour laws. The four labour laws are Minimum Wages Act of 1948, Payment of Wages Act of 1936, Payment of Bonus Act of 1965 and Equal Remuneration Act of 1976. The central government took the initiative to ensure minimum wages for all workers, including those with a monthly income of more than Rs. 18,000. The new wage code bill is also a step by the government to ensure that the numerous labour laws are concise.
A desperate bid to save sinking ships
India is under the circumstances of urgently creating job opportunities( Re-phrase the highlighted sentence). Minimum wages hurt chances of being employed.?( How exactly? This sounds contradictory to me) The informal economy and the dominance of small-scale industries )Their role needs to be expounded on a bit more)?has made the issue of minimum wages all the more serious. A national minimum wage allows firms with lower capital to create relatively higher employment standards. This means that employees will be paid at a higher scale.?(I have no idea how all this is connected to one another. We need ait of explanation here. This is too technical) Unable to attain the minimum wage standards, firms resort to layoffs and continue maintaining the standards for the remaining employees. (This doesn’t make sense to me) Such failures to achieve minimum standards push smaller businesses further into an already massive informal economy. (Don’t know how this entire paragraph is connected)?
Dire consequences?
Firms will find alternative ways to cut expenses if layoffs are not an option. (How is this directly connected to the labour law again? I need a bit of context and explanation here.) The quality of services is likely to decline. According to a paper by Subir K. Chakrabarti, Srikant Devaraj, and Pankaj C. Patel, restaurants tend to either lay off staff or cut off working hours. As a result, continuing employees will overwork and experience burnout at the workplace. Hygiene of the workplace will also take a turn for the worse as public health is compromised.
States vs. nationalization?
Indian states experience vast economic chasms. While the unemployment rate in Tripura is 200 per 100 people, Gujarat has 10 per 1000 people. Implementing a pan-India minimum wage has resulted in such stark employment differences between states. India will experience severe economic inequality between states. ( Explanation on how this inequality will come about, what it will be manifested in, what its implications will be. I find this to be a claim without any backup arguments. )Cost of living, skills, and investments must also be taken into account, as adopting a national minimum wage standard will create conflicts with policy-making bodies of states.
Before the storm batters states
India must learn from Brazil (What is so good about Brazil? Context? What can India learn? How can it be implemented? Also, I do not see any direct links among paragraphs) before regional income disparities become an another issue. India cannot afford to worsen an already troubled labour economy (This is one lede that should have been expounded upon in the beginning to establish the gravity of the issue before claims were made. This counts for context)?by adopting national minimum wage standard. (The author has failed to properly explain what it is and what it entails for the future. The second para doesn’t even cover it)??Without a competent foresight, it will be extremely risky to fiddle with sensitive issues. Long-term labour markets of the country will be jeopardized for the sake of appeasing the masses.(I again see no context here)?
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