How Much To Roll A Thousand Beedis?

Similar views have pressurised other states not to raise minimum wages. As in the case of states aggressively wooing the private sector. In Bengal, for instance, CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharya has embarked on economic reforms on the premise that "either you reform or perish" in the present milieu of globalisation. He believes India can compete with China only if it adopts the Chinese philosophy of not to 'stick to dogmas' and 'learn the truth from the facts'.

Interestingly, the labour unions have their own criticisms against such ideas. They feel that reforms don't just imply giving the employers the right to hire-and-fire; it also includes giving labour the opportunity to earn decent wages. CITU president M.K. Pandhe stresses the point that the Minimum Wages Act doesn't lay down detailed norms and that trade unions should be an integral part of the decision-making process. He wants the law to provide for need-based minimum wages, which was decided at the 15th Indian Labour Conference in 1957. This will be one of the issues raised at this year's labour conference, scheduled for April-end.

At a macro level, labour leaders are critical of existing policies despite the UPA's public admissions of wanting to help workers in the unorganised sector. INTUC president Sanjeev Reddy attacks the insurance scheme that Chidambaram has announced in this year's budget. "We are not happy with the budget proposal for unorganised landless labourers. Most of them don't have work for the entire year and will find it difficult to pay Re 1 per day as premium amount."

The growing feeling is that the government is making a lot of noise about promises, but there is no "practical approach" to ensure better wages and social security for unorganised workers. As Reddy puts it: "Only when elections are round the corner do policymakers talk about the unorganised sector. There's no concrete political effort by any of the parties. A determined approach is required."

A serious attempt to tackle labour-related issues is now being made by the Union labour ministry, which is finalising a draft legislation for the unorganised sector. The bill, which may be introduced in Parliament this year, will cover the entire gamut of a protection net to the workers, be it in terms of enhancing their skills to ensure higher wages, giving them all kinds of insurance cover, and saving them from possible ill-treatment by employers. The ministry will also set up an internal task force to flesh out the details of the finance minister's budget proposal.

Clearly, it'll not be the laws but the intense interplay between political and economic factors that will decide the destiny of the unorganised workers from now on. Other factors that'll play a role will be the tussle between various states to woo investments, and the Centre's pressure on them to improve the lives of deprived people. Sonia Gandhi wants minimum wages to go up, and more landless workers to come into the social net. And some of the Congress CMs will want to please their political masters.

But the Congress only rules in a few states and, hence, the impact of Sonia's diktat will be limited. The UPA government needs to send the right reforms signals to foreign investors. Not to forget a finance minister who's obsessed with fiscal prudence and wouldn't want to open his purse strings too much. Meanwhile, the states wish to woo more investments but will also be under political pressure to hike minimum wages to woo their traditional, and newer vote banks. It's anybody's guess whether politics will triumph over economics, or vice versa.