Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Nov 26: Employees of the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) today held strong demonstrations across Jammu and Kashmir to oppose the four new Labour Codes notified by the Government on November 21, this year.
The protest was held as part of a nationwide call by the All India Insurance Employees’ Association (AIIEA).
At the DO Cell of the LIC office in Jammu, Divisional Secretary of NZIEA Srinagar Division, Comrade Pawan Gupta, criticised the notification, calling it undemocratic and a serious attack on the long-established trade union rights of workers.
He alleged that both the Government and sections of the corporate media were trying to project the Labour Codes as worker-friendly, using terms like “historic” and “revolutionary,” despite their adverse impact on employees.
Protesting employees said the Industrial Relations Code narrows the definition of a “worker” and legalises fixed-term employment.
They highlighted that the code imposes heavy penalties and even jail terms for strikes termed “illegal,” which they said undermines the basic right to protest.
They also noted that the Code on Wages ignores long-standing recommendations for fixing minimum wages, while the Code on Social Security has neither notified schemes nor allocated funds for unorganised workers.
The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (OSHWC) Code, they said, weakens safeguards by allowing changes to the eight-hour workday and excluding many small factories and contractors from regulatory oversight.
The AIIEA strongly condemned the notification of the Labour Codes, calling them anti-worker and pro-employer, and demanded their immediate withdrawal.
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