|
The Second National Commission on Labour has called for a legislation to ensure a minimum level of protection to workers in the unorganized sector.
Based on the views and suggestions from different quarters, the Government has prepared the draft ‘Unorganized Sector Workers’ Bill, 2004’. The objective of this legislation is to regulate the employment and conditions of service of workers in the unorganised sector and to provide for their safety, social security and health.
The term "unorganized labour" has been defined as those workers who have not been able to organize themselves in pursuit of their common interest due to constraints like the casual nature of their employment, ignorance and illiteracy and the scattered size of the establishments where they work.
As per a survey by the National Sample Survey Organization in 1999-2000, the total employment in the country’s organized and unorganized sectors was 39.7 crore. Of this about 2.8 crore was in the organized sector and the balance 36.9 crore in the organized sector. Out of 36.9 crore workers in the organized sector, 23.7 crore were employed in agriculture, 1.7 crore in construction, 4.1 in manufacturing activities and 3.7 crore each in trade and transport and communication and services. A large number of workers in the unorganised sector are mostly engaged in occupations like beedi rolling making incence sticks (agarbattis), papads, tailoring, zari and embroidery work.
The unorganised workers suffer from cycles of excessive seasonality of employment, no formal employer-employee relationship and lack of social security.
|
