Daniel Albuquerque urges companies to sustain their employees and not to trample on their well-being in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic
In a celebrated judgment of the Bombay High Court, Firestone Tyre & Rubber Company versus Workmen (of that company) 1958, (see also 1959 IILLJ 124 Bom), the rights of the workers for salaries and bonus were upheld under Section 12 (5) of the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. While the company complained that the wages and bonuses paid to its workforces are adequate, the workers’ union placed before the court facts and figures of these which were far below the living wages; consequently they were mired in debts. The Court concurred with the workers’ union and, although with some necessary changes, it specified the reward in definite percentages for wages and bonus.
In the face of Covid-19 pandemic, the companies are laying off their employees, cutting their salaries and bonus, furloughing more useful ones, that is cancelling the jobs temporarily, and some even desist from any payment at all. As expert figures put the unemployment rate at an incredible 27.5%, or as some others observe a 100 million job loss, employees are staring into the dark tunnel of hopelessness with no glimmer of light at its end.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Labour and Employment put out an advisory: In the backdrop of such challenging situations, all the Employers of Public/Private Establishments are advised to extend their coordination by not terminating their employees, particularly casual or contractual workers from job or reduce their wages. Note that it is an advisory and not a mandatory regulation! However, even in normal times, in every case of labour dispute the workers have similar complaints: the companies have been making enormous profits, but have been unfair to their employees by underpaying. Thus adversely affecting unemployed people.
As per the government advisories, directives, and several obligations imposed by the different central and state ministries the employers must ensure mainly these:
1. The employees cannot be dismissed, salaries reduced or furloughed.
2. All reasonable measures must be taken to prevent the viral infection by ensuring hygienic workplace as per the directives of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the recommendations of the World Health Organization.
3. Employers must rationalize travel of its executives; employees have the right to refuse travel.
4. Quarantine facilities must be set up.
5. Employers have the right not to allow a Covid-19 infected person within the company premises.
6. The companies have the right to protect their data and privacy related issues as they deem fit by prohibiting the use of private computers and other network systems and platforms.
Be that as it may. The companies, with the exceptions of a handful, in their effort to survive the risk of prolonged lockdown and its seen and unforeseen risks have taken serious measures of downsizing of the salaries, discontinuance of employees, dismissal of contract and casual labour, etc. What gasoline is for a motor vehicle, cash is for running a business. A government that runs on taxpayers’ money worries less about cash flow, for it can always deficit its budget. A company does not have that luxury; it must earn first, invest it, conduct business, and only then is able to pay out. On the other hand the conundrum is vicious; without workers there is no industry, and without industry the economy of a country comes to a standstill. On behalf of the workers a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed by Adv. Rajesh Inamdar and General Secretary of National Information Technology Employees Sens Harpreet Sluja in the Supreme Court of India. They pleaded that companies have completely disregarded the Government directives during Covid-19 and have undertaken mass job termination, salary cuts and other measures detrimental to the workers. The plea seeks a balance between the rights of the workers as well as those of the employers. The fundamental right to life enshrined in Article 21 of the Constitution of India is at stake if the livelihood of the employees is sidelined.
We proudly address them with epithets such as business leaders, captains of industry, Czar of something, even, kings and monarchs. These and the members of the board, further supported by experts and consultants just ignored the Corona Virus emanating from Wuhan in December 2019; even a quarter down the New Year, they neglected to take notice and guard themselves against the imminent disaster!
Further, they failed to perceive the consequences of two emergency laws: 1) Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 which was enacted to deal with the deadly bubonic plague that decimated the population of Bombay in British India. 2) Disaster Management Act 2005, enacted with the objectives to deal with both natural as well as man-made disasters. The consequences of these laws consist in the emergency powers of the government, whereby every economic activity can be stilled and frozen. The company boards must decide at their earliest to face the problem head on, re-budget and reorient the company targets, even suffer temporary loss, which in reality would benefit the company with renewed motivation and confirmed loyalty of its workers and will be more than adequately compensated in the long term. What the companies need to understand is that their businesses are oriented for other things being equal or normal times. However, if the company is a learning institution, that it is intelligent enough to foresee and understand when the times are not normal; when there are financial meltdowns or other market risks; they also must provide for unforeseen acts of natural and calamities beyond their powers to control. Whichever company is wise enough to provide for such emergencies would never complain when disaster strikes. Even a humble housing society in India has a ‘sinking fund’ for unforeseen eventualities, but the governing board of our companies does not believe in the proverb to save something for the rainy day. The Covid-19 pandemic has exposed Indian companies of their unpreparedness, short-sightedness and lack of legal acumen to conduct themselves with equity and good conscience, the two pillars of Indian jurisprudence.
Finally, Industry looking for stimulus from the government which does so from taxpayers’ kitty tantamounts to demanding money from the very employees who have been retrenched and who may be trudging their way home towards a remote village of India.
The columnist is a writer with Oxford University Press and a published author. Email: albuquerque.daniel@gmail.com
