We now have three more Bills floating around in draft form - (a) Agricultural Workers (Social Security and Conditions of Work) Bill, 2005; (b) Non-Agricultural Unorganised Sector Workers (Conditions of Work and Livelihood Promotion) Bill, 2005; and (c) Non-Agricultural Unorganised Sector Workers Social Security Bill, 2005.
Why do we need more laws?
In general, the need for a fresh statute is set out in a "Statement of Objects and Reasons" clause that precedes the Bill. Consider (a) first. In the Statement of Objects and Reasons we are told agriculture employs nearly 60 per cent of the workforce and they must have social security, minimum conditions of work, and a mechanism for dispute resolution.
Laudable objectives, except that the Statement of Objects and Reasons could have clearly told us why we need a fresh statute.
Take (b) next. In the Statement of Objects and Reasons we are told the unorganised non-agricultural sector accounts for nearly 30 per cent of the workforce and this segment doesn't have minimum conditions of work, protection and promotion of livelihoods, or a mechanism for dispute resolution. Rectifying this is again a laudable objective, but we still don't know why we need a fresh statute. The Statement of Objects and Reasons for (c) does no better.
With our pathology of over-legislation and under-governance, why do we have this irrational exuberance about legislation and a blind belief that legislation is the answer to every problem? Given the desire to do good, all three statutes will no doubt be passed and add to our corpus of legislation and achieve nothing more.
In other countries, legislation is no longer open-ended. There are clear benchmarks against which law's success is judged. If these improvements don't result, the statute is scrapped after a prescribed interval. None of the three Bills contemplates anything like that. For that matter, does it make sense to distinguish between agricultural and non-agricultural workers?
All the three statutes provide for a registration system and identity cards, with social security numbers. Take (a) first. To obtain this registration, I have to have a ration card or a voter's I-card. I have to be above 18 and must have "work experience in the agricultural sector for a period of not less than 180 days in the preceding 12 months prior to the application".
The item (c) follows this registration idea. The item (b) doesn't require it, because non-agricultural workers have been registered under (c). Other than the ration card/voter's I-card and being above 18, to obtain registration, I must have "work experience in the Non-Agricultural Unorganized Sector for a period of not less than 180 days in the preceding 12 months prior to the application".
A social security-type I-card is a good idea and has been mentioned by other people, including the Kelkar Task Forces. But for the system to be workable, transaction costs associated with obtaining I-cards have to be low.
By insisting on ration cards/voter's I-cards and work experience of not less than 180 days in the relevant segment, I think we are increasing transaction costs rather than reducing them. Notice that the two I-cards are "portable", meaning they remain valid in instances of migration to another district. However, they aren't "portable" across occupations.
If I have an agricultural worker I-card, I am stuck with it and can't move to the non-agricultural category, without surrendering the old card and a fresh application, and vice-versa. What happens once this registration system is in place? First, I am entitled to social security, interpreted as old-age pensions, health insurance, maternity benefits, and accident and life insurance.
For agricultural workers, we create a National Social Security Fund and National and State-level Social Security Boards. Ditto for non-agricultural workers. But beyond creating this bureaucracy, we don't have the foggiest idea about how the desirable goal of social security will be delivered.
Second, workers will be entitled to minimum labour standards and shall have the right to form trade unions and engage in collective bargaining. The normal hours of work will be 8 hours per day and overtime wages will be paid at double the normal rate.
In addition, for agricultural wage workers, "an employer shall not employ any agricultural wage worker other than an agricultural wage worker who has worked in the same land during the previous agricultural season", and so on. There will be Dispute Resolution Councils.
Paraphrased, we unleash the controls of labour laws on agricultural and non-agricultural unorganised sector workers. To get back to the original set of objectives behind all the three statutes, we had social security, minimum conditions of work, and a mechanism for dispute resolution. The third is not really a separate objective, but flows from the second.
Between social security and minimum conditions of work, which is more important? I would have thought the former is more important, although it is more difficult to implement.
An uncharitable diagnosis of these three Bills is the following. Because delivering social security is more difficult, we do no more than pay lip service to it and unleash a new EPFO. Simultaneously, we pick up elements from organised sector labour laws and extend them to the unorganised sector, including agricultural workers.