Anand Teltumbde: How India’s new labour codes dismantle worker protections

When the Modi government implemented four new labour codes on November 21, it claimed to be delivering “one of the most comprehensive and progressive labour-oriented reforms since Independence”. The prime minister himself celebrated the moment with his characteristic triumphalism, declaring that the codes “greatly empower our workers” while simplifying compliance for businesses.

The Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions comprising ten major trade unions saw it differently. In a scathing statement, they condemned the implementation as a “deceptive fraud” against India’s working people and burned copies of the codes in street protests.

The Communist Party of India (Marxist) charged that the reforms “dismantle 29 hard-won labour laws” and “shift the balance sharply in favour of employers”. Even the Association of Indian Entrepreneurs, hardly a bastion of worker advocacy, expressed concern about significantly increased operating costs.

Who is right? Is this historic reform or historic betrayal? The answer lies in the details – in comparing specific provisions of the old laws with their equivalents in the new codes. When we examine these comparisons systematically, a clear pattern emerges: beneath the rhetoric of modernisation and expanded coverage, the new codes systematically weaken protections, intensify precarity and shift power dramatically from workers to employers.

The retrenchment revolution

Perhaps the most consequential change concerns...

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