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4-Day Work Week: Govt Considers New Flexible Labour Code For Employees
Posted on: 10/Feb/2021 5:36:02 PM
Information is gathered that the central government is planning to introduce a new system which involves only 4 days’ work in a week (48 hours) and 3 days being ‘off’ days!
The Central Government had announced a few months earlier that certain revisions will be undertaken in the Labour Act. It was especially mentioned that the quantum of work per day will be increased to 12 hours from the present system of 8 hours. However, there was an immediate strong protest from the working staff for this proposal while, at the same time, the production/manufacturing units were rather delighted with the additional work proposed per day!
While there was a stream of protests from the Employee/Labour Unions, the central government decided to shelve the proposal for the time-being!
In this scenario, the proposal has propped its head again! Discussions have ensued regarding the 4-days-48-hours work per week!
The Secretary of the Central Ministry of Employees and Job opportunities, Apoorva Chandra shared:
“Presently, a system of 8 working hours per day for 6-days a week (48 hours of work per week) is being followed in most of the offices/manufacturing units. In case this is increased to 12 hours per day, there is no change in the rule that the total number of working hours MUST be 48 HOURS PER WEEK!
Hence, in case 12 hours of work is extracted per day, the workers must be given only 4 days of work per week! For the balance 3 days in the week, a holiday with full payment must be given for the workers!
In this regard, the various organisations in the industry and other sectors must consult and obtain the feedback from each employee and get their full approval, the number of working hours should be increased accordingly!
This is simply because not all persons will be able to work 12 hours per day!
The Ministry of the Labour Welfare has taken up the task of preparing the rules & regulations for the proposed revised scheme.
Similarly, the production units/offices must give due consideration to the category of employees NOT AFFILIATED TO UNIONS and a suitable platform for this will be released in May or June. In this process, the views/suggestions of the maximum employees must be recorded.
The main objective of the Central Government is to obtain the suggestions/observations of non-union affiliated workers in full detail! With this arrangement, provisions will be made for insurance coverage of the workers in case of any accidents. “
The Secretary further assured that FINAL DECISIONS WOULD BE TAKEN WITH DUE CONSIDERATION OF THE EMPLOYEES’ STAND/CONCERN.
