It's a new day for labour

Four consolidated codes advance equal pay for women, gig worker protection, gratuity after a year, health checks

- Team Mint

The Centre on Friday notified four new labour codes that extend basic social security and minimum wage guarantees to over 400 million workers across the formal and informal sectors.

Further, the codes include provisions such as equal pay for women, gratuity for fixed-term employees after one year, free annual health checkups for workers above 40 years, double wages for overtime, and full health security for workers in hazardous sectors.

The codes replace a labyrinth of 29 fragmented laws, a statement by the labour ministry said, calling it a significant effort to modernise archaic laws. Some of these laws date back to the colonial and immediate postIn- dependence era (1930s-1950s), in a world that was “fundamentally different”, the statement added.