UGC NET/JRF EXAM, June-2021 Labour and Social Welfare

The Current Weekly Status: Concept determines the activity status of a person with reference to a period of preceding seven days. If in this period, a person seeking employment fails to get work for even one hour on any day, he (or she) is deemed to be unemployed.

A person having worked for an hour or more on any one or more days during the reference period, gets the employed status. The Current Weekly Status unemployment rate, like the Usual Status unemployment rate, is also a person rate.

The Joint Consultative Machinery (JCM) was set up in 1966 by the Government on the basis of the recommendations of the Second Pay Commission constituted in 1959; the prime motive was to facilitate communication and cooperation between the Government and its employees.

The Commission defined the objectives of the machinery as "promoting harmonious relations and securing the greatest measure of cooperation between the government in its capacity as employer and the general body of its employees in matters of common concern and with the object further of increasing the efficiency of public service".

Cyclical Unemployment: Cyclical unemployment, is a kind of involuntary unemployment in developed countries. It occurs during recession or depression, caused by lack of demand for goods.

This problem can be solved by appropriate monetary and fiscal policies. But in a country like India, the problem is not that of the lack of demand.

Section 25H was inserted in the Industrial Disputes Act by the Amendment Act of 1953. It prescribes that if the employer proposes to employ new hand, then he has to provide an opportunity to the retrenched workman and preference is to be given to such workman over other person.

This provision provides the benefit only to the retrenched workman. If the service of a workman is terminated otherwise than on retrenchment, he would not be entitled to re-employment under this section.

Section 25H is to be looked along with Section 25G which provides that the last employed person will be retrenched first and the principle, 'last come first go enunciated therein, is having its application to a particular category of workman. Therefore, the retrenched workman would be re-appointed in the same category.

Types of Strikes Based on Technique:

Slow-down Strike: In a strike of this type, workers do not actually stop working; rather they slow down the pace of their work. Such strikes are a common feature in the Indian sugar industry during the crushing season and in docks during heavy pressures for unloading goods from ships.

Employers vehemently resent this form of strike and call it immoral. Quickie Strike: In a quickie, workers remain in their place of work, but they stop work for a brief period, that is, for a few minutes or a few hours. Sit-down Strike: In a sit-down strike also, workers remain in their place of work but they do not work.

The duration of stoppage in a sit-down strike is longer than that in a quickie. The difference between a quickie and a sit-down strike is only of duration; all quickies involve sit-downs but all sit-downs are not quickies. Further, in a slow-down strike workers pretend to be working, though at a slower pace.

In a sit-down strike, they stop working altogether. Work-to-rule: Under a work-to-rule situation, employees are not formally on strike similar to the slowdown situation. The employees declare that they will perform their tasks strictly in accordance with the rules prescribed.

In some industries, the nature of business and the rules prescribed are such as to lead to a considerably slowing down of the pace of work if the rules are strictly followed. Therefore, in actual practice, many of the rules are very often overlooked without causing any damage to the quality and quantity of work.

Under such conditions, if the unions and workers declare that they will work according to the rules, they succeed in slowing down the pace of work and reducing output without going on a formal strike and without any dereliction of duty. The procedure of work followed during work-torule movement shows a departure from the customary procedure, but not from the prescribed one, and the ultimate result is slowdown.

A work-to-rule movement, thus, becomes a very effective instrument of exerting pressure on the management. In some services like insurance, banking, post and telegraph and government offices, employees have often resorted to work-to-rule method for the fulfilment of their demands.

The workto-rule movement is generally a slow-down movement. Ordinary Strike: The strike situation in which workers continue to be present in their workplaces is not very common.

The most common strike, which is distinct from others, noted above is one in which workers formally quit their places of work and prevent others, occasionally by violence but mostly by persuasion and picketing, from replacing them. In this form of strike, picketing, processions and demonstrations become necessary for the success of the strike.

Walton and Mckersie have brought into one framework the ideas of a number of behaviourists. They view labour negotiations as a fruitful setting for the study of the larger field of social negotiations: "a deliberate inter-action of two or more complex social units which are attempting to define or redefine the terms of their inter-dependence". This analytical framework identifies four subprocesses or types of bargaining in labour negotiations. These types are:

(i) Distributive Bargaining, where the objectives of the parties on particular issues are in conflict and the outcome represents a gain for one party and a loss for the other,

(ii) Integrative Bargaining, where the objectives of the parties on particular issues are not fundamental conflict. It is the situation in which management and the union work to solve a problem to the benefit of both. Most quality of work life changes involve integrative bargaining,

(iii) Attitudinal Structuring, where the objective of the bargaining actions is to influence the relationships between the parties or shaping of attitudes toward one another. Four dimensions of this relationship have been identified:

(a) Indicators whether the interaction will be competitive and adversial or cooperatives;
(b) Beliefs about the legitimacy of the other party's right to bargain;
(c) Level of trust in conductive affairs (belief in the integrity and honesty of other party); and
(d) Degree of friendliness (whether the interactions are friendly or hostile). As the bargaining process proceeds, these attitudes may be altered. The attitudes emerging from the negotiations will have a serious impact on the administration of the contract and on future negotiations,

(iv) Intra-organizational Bargaining, where the objective is to obtain consensus within the negotiator's own organisation on the bargaining issues During negotiations, the bargaining teams from both sides may have to engage in intraorganisational bargaining or conferring with their constituents over changes in bargaining positions.

Management negotiations may have to convince management to change its position on an issue-for instance, to agree to a higher wage settlement. Union negotiators must convince their members to accept the negotiated contract, so they must be sensitive to the demands of the membership but be realistic as well.

Time of payment of wages: If the number of persons employed in a factory, an industrial establishment or a railway, including daily rated workers, is less than 1,000, wages must be paid before the expiry of the seventh day after the last day of the wage period.

In other cases, the payment must be made before the expiry of the tenth day after the last wage period. In the event of termination of employment of any employee, the wages earned by him shall be paid before the expiry of the second working day from the day on which his employment is terminated.

If the employment is terminated due to closure of an establishment or for any other reason than a weekly or other recognised holiday, wages shall be paid before the expiry of the second day from the day on which his employment is terminated. All payments of wages should be made on a working day, and be paid in current points or currency notes or in both.

Cost of living index number (Sec. 2(d)) : 'Cost of living index number' in relation to employees in any scheduled employment in respect of which minimum rates of wages have been fixed, means the index number ascertained and declared by the competent authority by notification in the Official Gazette to be the cost of living index number applicable to employees in such employment.