Labour codes: A positive step towards women’s empowerment

In most families in India, women are the primary caregivers for children and the elderly in the family. In fact, according to a study by Mckinsey, their contribution to domestic or care work is estimated to be a whopping 0.3 trillion dollars which unfortunately today, is neither measured not valued while determining the GDP of the country.

With the gender pay gap as high as 80 percent in some of the Indian states, ensuring pay parity for women has been a constant urge by women’s rights advocates. The recent wage code clearly has created the right grounds for ensuring gender parity across sectors by emphasising equal opportunity and wages for all genders. This in turn could go a long way in attracting more women to join the organised workforce in India.

Equal opportunity hasn’t just been restricted to wage parity but now also encompasses opportunities for women to work the same shifts and hours as men. While earlier laws had restrictions for women working at night, the labour codes have now removed the restriction for women working late hours. This can act as an impetus for a major cultural transition by enabling women to take on roles that were previously restricted.

At the same time safety has been given due consideration. The codes stipulate employers ensure the safety of their female employees by providing safe, well-lit working conditions as well as safe transportation. Different aspects around ensuring women have a safe working condition are visibility across the various provisions of the labour code. For example, the wage code has certain provisions that promote the safety of women at the workplace by allowing for employers to take harsher steps including disqualification of bonus in sexual harassment cases.

For the first time the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 focuses on ‘consent’ to keep in mind personal preferences of women at the workplace. The code proposes that employers gain the consent of their women employees while working night shifts thereby allowing them to opt-out of working certain shifts in case of any personal constraints.

While a number of women do join the workforce, a common problem across all sectors is the drop-out rate which has largely to do with balancing personal priorities with workplace opportunities. Across the world maternity and childcare demands have been one of the major factors for women leaving the organised workforce. By prohibiting the termination of women employees on maternity leave, the government has taken precautions to ensure job security for women during this critical time.

India is amongst the top countries in the amount of paid maternity leave available to women employees, with 26 weeks of paid maternity leave along with provisions to extend the leave. The new codes have also recognised that organisations can offer a work from home facility incase it is possible to do so. The social security code also has provisions that require employers with more than 50 employees to provide creche facilities that can help working mothers with the right amount of child care support as they return to work. The law also stipulates that employers provide mothers with young child sufficient breaks so that they may visit the child at the creche. All these are great measures that can help women balance work and child care commitments as they slowly make their way back to the workforce.

While some of these measures are basic factors in ensuring the safety and comfort of women in the workplace, the new labour codes have a number of provisions that can allow organisations to take more interventions to support their women employees. The code allows organisations to define the number of working hours in a day and the number of working days a week and also allows organisations to define their payroll cycle whether it is weekly, fortnightly or monthly.

With these changes, businesses can now devise flexible working plans to accommodate the needs of their women employees. Part time working, work from home and split shifts with flexible breaks during the day to allow for domestic and child care responsibilities combined with work from home are now very much under the ambit of the law.

The labour codes have definitely served as a beacon to guide organisations into new measure they can undertake to increase the strength of their female workforce. Combined with the will and execution from organisations in India, we can look forward to a new era in where the women in our country are safe, successful and productive at the workplace.