Kerala Minister Sivankutty flays new central labour policy, calls it 'anti-labour'

Thiruvananthapuram, Oct 30 (PTI) Kerala Minister for Labour and General Education Sivankutty on Thursday flayed the new draft central labour policy, terming it as “extremely anti-labour,” and one which takes away the rights of states.

In a statement here, he alleged that the new policy, “Shram Shakti Neeti 2025” released by the Union Labour Ministry completely negates constitutional labour rights and the concept of social justice.

The minister said the Kerala government will strongly oppose the policy, which cites ancient texts like ‘Manusmriti’ and concepts like ‘Rajdharma’ and ‘Shramadharma’ instead of the Indian Constitution as the basis for a policy document that talks about workers' rights.

“This is highly reprehensible and regressive. This is a covert attempt to reduce workers from being ‘citizens with rights’ to being ‘submissive slaves,” he said, adding, bringing back such ideas that justify caste-based division of labour is against social justice.

The minister said employment and labour welfare are subjects under the concurrent list of the Constitution.

The new draft policy completely ignores the states and will lead to ranking the states through mechanisms like ‘labour and employment policy evaluation index’ and imposing the pro-corporate policies of the Centre, he said.

“This is a blatant violation of federal principles,” he said.

Sivankutty said the policy is completely silent on the most basic needs of workers, such as job security, a decent minimum wage, and permanent employment.

The ministry's responsibility to verify compliance with labour laws is limited to the pseudonym ‘employer’ to weaken enforcement mechanisms. This will only serve to increase exploitation in the labour sector, he said.

The minister said Kerala is a model for the country in protecting the welfare and rights of workers.

He said the Kerala government demands that this anti-labour and unconstitutional draft policy of the union government be withdrawn immediately and a new policy be formulated in consultation with all the parties concerned. PTI MVG MVG ROH