By Dr. Gyan Pathak
Prime Minister Narendra Modi led Union Government of India goes on disrupting the employers’ and workers’ organisations’ independence by interfering in their internal processes and thereby worsening the fate of workers in a fast-changing world of work.
This attitude of the Centre has even been censured recently in 111th Session of the International Labour Conference (ILC) held between 5-16 June 2023, where the Credentials Committee urged India to clean its record before it comes to participate in 112th Session of the ILC in 2024. Notwithstanding the censure, the Centre goes on doing the same in the interest of their favourites.
It should be noted that the BJP led Centre is openly favouring the RSS-BJP supported Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) both in India and International forums, despite it has been opposed by all other Central Trade Unions in the Country.
The Second Report of the ILO’s Credentials Committee has said that it had found objection concerning the nomination of the Workers’ delegation of India for the 111th Session of the ILC. It was presented by ten workers’ organisations (AICCTU, AITUC, AIUTUC, CITU, HMS, LPF, SEWA, TUCC, UTUC and INTUC). It was also supported by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).
The objection submitted that the Government had placed restrictions on the number of International Labour Conference sessions that an individual may attend in a lifetime (total of five) and consecutively (no more than three). The objecting organizations submitted that such restrictions were unnecessary, unconstitutional, unfair and in violation of the ILO Constitution.
Joined to the objection was, among other documents, a letter from the Ministry of Labour and Employment to the HMS dated 20 April 2023 requesting the nomination of advisers for the Workers’ delegation and a letter dated 2 July 2018 from the Ministry to the central trade unions, which was referred to in the former and which set out the restrictions on attendance at the Conference with the intention, amongst other things, of providing a fair chance to all representatives and to give scope to other participants.
The objecting organizations recalled their opposition to the Government’s restrictions, through a jointly signed letter dated 24 July 2018, as they considered the Ministry’s actions as undue interference in the internal functioning of the unions incompatible with their prerogative to nominate themselves any person for any national or international conference. They also objected to the ongoing exclusion of the INTUC, one of the major central trade unions in national, international bipartite and tripartite forums.
The Union government on its part has said in its reply that some employers’ and workers’ representatives are repeatedly sent to participate in ILC, some over 10 to 15 times. Additionally, the Centre said that at none of the tripartite meetings had the issue of the restrictions been raised.
Concerning the INTUC, the government stated that it was involved in factional dispute which was now in legal process, and government could not identify the appropriate group representing the INTUC, therefore temporary excluded it. Prior to 2017, INTUC was always part of tripartite delegation. The question concerning INTUC has come to the Credentials Committee in 2018.
Union government defended its decision on sending BMS delegates, by saying that it was the largest democratically elected workers’ organization as it had 6.2 million members as against 3.9 million members of the nest largest trade union, and requested the Credentials Committee to dismiss the objections raised by the 10 Central Trade Unions.
However, the Committee observed that the government has no jurisdiction to examine the internal dispute. The Committee found that government did not mention in its reply what effort it exerted to make common representation from all the disputing groups. The Committee urged the government to re-double its effort so that nomination of workers’ delegation of India to future ILCs will be in full compliance with article 3(5) of the ILO Constitution.
The Committee found that the issue of restrictions on representative was objected long back in 2018 by the CTUs. Under such circumstances, the report says, the Committee cannot but consider that the government has interfered with the independence of the decision-making process of employers’ and workers’ organisations in contravention of its obligations under article 3(5) of the ILO constitution.
As the Committee has stressed in the past, governments must accept the most representative organisations’ choice regarding the persons they nominated. Refusal to do so is a clear violation of their obligation under article 3(5) of the ILO Constitution. The Committee trusts that the government will take the necessary action to rescind such a restriction with immediate effect, thus permitting the social partners to designate their representatives in complete independence from government interference, the report emphasized.
The Committee added that while it strongly supported the call for increased participation of women in the Conference, this might not be used as a pretext to refuse to nominate a delegate duly designated by the most representative employers’ or workers’ organizations in the country. The Committee encouraged governments to call on the social partners to bear gender equality in mind when choosing their representatives, but it cannot impose it on them. (IPA Service)