Parliamentary committee to seek unemployment insurance for most of unorganised sector workers

The parliamentary standing committee on labour vetting the labour code on social security is likely to ask the government to incorporate a provision of providing unemployment insurance for most of the unorganised sector workers, barring those working in farms and as domestic helps, in the code.

A fund can be created by the government in which the insured person will contribute on a monthly basis and the government will also chip in. It will help those who have not got the job yet even after attaining a certain age or skill or those who have fallen unemployed after in the job, the committee may suggest.

A senior committee member, on condition of anonymity, said that the absence of any provision for unemployment insurance for the unorganized sector workers in the draft seems to be the biggest gap and therefore, it becomes imperative on the part of the government to incorporate such a provision.

The second labour commission had also mooted such a proposal for the unorganised sector workers including the construction workers and self-employed workers. “Had there been an unemployment insurance scheme, the unprecedented labour market situation that has arisen out of the Covid-19 pandemic could have been avoided,” the source said.

The committee is also likely to suggest the government to extend the coverage of Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) and Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) to an estimated 30 lakh migrant workers. The labour ministry had introduced the social security code on December 11, 2019. It was referred to the Parliamentary standing committee on labour on December 24. The committee will meet tomorrow to finalise its draft recommendations.

Under the labour code on social security, the labour ministry had earlier proposed to universalise social security for all sets of workers; but the Bill it introduced in Lok Sabha proposed to form a National Social Security Board that would recommend the centre suitable schemes for the different section of unorganised sector workers.

The Bill also proposes to empower the centre to constitute a social security fund for provision of social security for the unorgansied workers, platform workers or gig workers or any such class of workers. In 2014, the Modi 1.0 government announced a plan to amalgamate 44 central labour Acts into four codes. Only the code on wages, which proposes universalisation of minimum wages, has been passed by Parliament so far, and even the Code is not under implementation as the relevant rules haven’t yet been finally notified.

The three other codes — on industrial relations (which contains reform proposals including easier hiring and retrenchment freedom for employers and redefining of trade unions’ role), social security and operational safety, health & working conditions (OSH) — have been introduced in the lower House, though none of them could be passed. The OSH code has been lately redrafted and the modified version is to be taken up by the Cabinet for introduction in Parliament again.

Source: Financial Express

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