Gangwar while speaking at the Assocham Foundation Week programme, said EPFO has settled 52 lakh COVID-19 withdrawal claims and disbursed Rs 13,300 crore to subscribers during the pandemic

As firms in India are expanding their footprint globally, they not only need to be competitive but also win the trust of both local and global customer and this will not be possible without following the best practices

Ministry has now sought views from stakeholders on these draft rules in 45 days. Along with OSH & WC, govt has also put forward draft rules for all four labour codes

Several reforms passed by Parliament since the pandemic set in, could lift medium-term growth prospects, including the agricultural reforms to give farmers more flexibility over where to sell their produce, it said

The labour ministry had gathered inputs over the next 45 days from the date of notification, following which the final rules will now be notified

Grover further noted that the long-term objective of the labour reforms should be to create more employment opportunities as India is set to surpass China as the most populous nation

Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar in September said that efforts would be made to complete the labour reforms by implementing the all four labour codes by December 2020

The economic crisis following the pandemic and untimely national lockdown have been used by both the central and state governments to push through unilateral measures that undermine workers' interest by dismantling critical protections

Labour unions have opposed new rule which allows companies with upto 300 employees to lay-off staff and close the firm without government approval. The threshold for this was 100 employees earlier

Neither the Wage Code 2019 nor the draft Rules 2020 notified in July 2020 under it links wage to labour productivity, strengthen implementation regime, make minimum wage universal or limit working hours to 8-hour a day to improve the lot of workers

COVID-19 pandemic: One in every 250 people on Earth now infectedWith total cases standing at 32.4 million or 0.4 per cent of the world's population, every 250th person on the Earth is now infected with coronavirus. As of September 2020, the world's population stood at 7.8 billion, according to the estimates by the United Nations.The total number of deaths now stand at 983,000.Serum Institute shares, applauds PM Modi's vision: Adar Poonawalla on India's vaccine offer to worldA day after Pr...

New labour codes severely reduce workers' security by increasing key thresholds for applicability of most protections; contractual employment has been expanded to add to workers' precarity and social protections for unorganised workers are vague

Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar says the Wage Code Bill was passed last year and now with the passage of three more codes by Parliament, the rules under these legislations would be enforced at once

Parliament on Wednesday approved the three labour codes that will remove impediments to winding up of companies and allow firing of staff without government permission in firms with up to 300 workers from the existing 100

The three labour codes seen together fail to achieve even reasonable balance between enabling of ease of doing business, and protecting & strengthening labour welfare and their rights

Introducing the bills, Labour Minister Santosh Gangwar stressed that the objective of labour reforms is to have labour laws in line with the changing world of workplace and provide an effective and transparent system, balancing the needs of workers and industries

On Wednesday alone, Rajya Sabha passed three key labour reform bills on industrial relations, social security and occupational safety by voice votes; in total, Upper House had to hold 18 sittings but only 10 could be held due to fear of COVID-19 spread in Parliament

Rajya Sabha on Wednesday passed three key labour code reform bills even as protests by opposition parties on farm bills and suspension of eight MPs continued

Central Trade Union Organisations have programmes conducted all over India to protest codification of labour laws and other changes

Companies with not less than 300 workers will soon be allowed to hire and fire workers without seeking prior nod from the government