The three labour law codes passed by Parliament last week received President Ram Nath Kovind’s assent on Monday, according to the Law Ministry’s gazette notifications on Tuesday.
The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020, the Industrial Relations Code, 2020 and the Code on Social Security, 2020 were passed by the Lok Sabha on September 22 and the Rajya Sabha on September 23, during the Opposition boycott over the passage of the agriculture Bills earlier in the session.
Together with the Code on Wages, 2019 that was passed by Parliament last year, the four codes subsume 29 laws and are a part of the government’s labour law reforms agenda. Labour and Employment Minister Santosh Kumar Gangwar had termed the codes “game changers” while speaking in both the Houses during the discussion on the Bills. Trade unions and Opposition parties had criticised the government terming them anti-worker and questioning their passage without adequate consultation and discussion.
