In India, the conflict between labour and capital has been intensified with the replacement and codification of all labour laws into four Labour Codes in the name of ‘rationalisation’ and ‘ease of doing business’ in order to reduce the labour compliance burden of industries. This has deeply significant consequences for the rights of workers, especially women.
The paradigm of growth-with-jobs has been replaced by one that not only pitches growth against employment, but in fact clearly states that the former can occur only by disregarding the latter and the corresponding labour rights. Today the majority of policies overtly support profits over wages and the control of capital over labour via State-supported centralisation of capital. The macro-patriarchal construct of the State and subsequently its policies, not only trivialises but also negates workers, men and especially women, as economic agents as well as citizens. This reinforces gender disparities that further lead to de-equalisation at multiple levels. Historically, the majority of women across the gendered work continuum are out of the ambit of labour laws, given that they are employed primarily in informal work, even more so than men.
The central issue is, therefore, to examine the new Labour Codes through a feminist lens as located within the gendered reality where women are primarily informal, own account, are self-employed and are typically and simultaneously employed in fluid multiple economic activities that more often than not integrate paid, under-paid, unpaid and unpaid care work.
The Codes were passed in Parliament between 2019 and 2020 in spite of vociferous opposition and under, what I term as, the camouflage of COVID-19, when the workers were involved in just basic physical survival.
