In what is being seen as a positive signal in fixing minimum wages on scientific basis in the current revision cycle, the State government has sent back a proposal by the Labour Department to enhance minimum wages for 10 scheduled employments and asked the wages to be revised on a more rational basis.
While the minimum wages for 38 scheduled employments have already been notified in 2022-2023, the revised minimum wages for 10 scheduled employment is pending before the new Congress government for notification.
Labour Minister Santosh Lad confirmed the development and said that he had asked for a scientific revision of wages. “Labour cannot be cheap. I have asked the department officials to come up with fresh calculations,” he told The Hindu.
In Karnataka, to the already existing 83 scheduled employments, 22 were added in 2019, taking the total to 105 that covers close to about 2 crore workers.
The minimum wages were fixed in 2017-2018 to 83 scheduled employments in Karnataka, and as per law these are to be revised at least once in five years.
Labour unions’ stand
The revision of minimum wages to 38 of the scheduled employments in 2022-23, however, had been criticised by trade unions.
While the 2017-2018 fixation of minimum wages was based on a ground-level survey at 16 centres across Karnataka, the State notified 5% to 10% hike on the wages, including the variable dearness allowance, without such a survey to assess inflation-related price rise in 2022-23.
The unions had opposed the calculations and sought the revision based on the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in the Reptakos Brett case.
The officials pointed out that the ground survey had not been possible owing to the pandemic and also in anticipation of the Labour Code coming into effect.
The department officials had argued that during the revision of the minimum wages in 2017-2018, the government followed the court guidelines in the Reptakos Brett case to bring uniformity in minimum wages.
Since the 2022-2023 process is to only revise the wages, there was no need to follow the guidelines again, the officials had argued. After the government notified the revision of minimum wages in 38 scheduled employment, the unions approached the High Court for relief.
“The cost of food, clothes, and shelter has to be factored in the calculations for revision of minimum wages. The Reptakos Brett case should form the basis for calculations. Surveys should be conducted to ascertain ground realities. The government-notified minimum wages for 38 scheduled employments was arbitrary,” All-India Trade Union Congress Karnataka secretary M. Satyanand said.
Cost of meat
He welcomed the government’s decision of asking the department to rework the wage calculations, in the case of the 10 scheduled employments yet to be notified.
“Meat that is part of the diet of a large number of households has not been considered for calculating minimum wages. This should be considered in this revision.”
Meanwhile, in a recent reply to a RTI query, the Labour Department has said that it will be following the guidelines fixed by the court in the Reptakos Brett case while fixing minimum wages to the 22 new employments added to the schedule since 2019.
