Nation in Labour

When the Modi government took over the reins last year, it began what was a much-needed push to labor reforms.
While some laws sought to ease apprenticeship rules for employers, or reduce the sheer number of laws that small manufacturing units have to comply with, or imposing a complete ban on child labor up to 14 years of age, there where others where companies struggled with the multiplicity of labor laws or rigid contract labor laws. Others found it difficult to align their growing strategies with decades-old laws governing workplace disputes, pay scales, social security, maternity benefits and contracting labor.
In this story, we take a look at how the employee relations and industrial relations will change in this dynamic landscape, what challenges the companies and labor force face in this regard and what initia-tives the big companies have undertaken to address the same. We talked to several industry leaders and five large companies—Mahindra & Mahindra, ICICI Bank, Raychem