A trade union, often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers who have come together to achieve common goals, such as protecting the integrity of their trade, improving safety standards, and attaining better wages, benefits, and working conditions through the increased bargaining power wielded by solidarity among workers. Trade unions typically fund the formal organization, head office, and legal team functions of the trade union through regular fees or union dues. The delegate staff of the trade union representation in the workforce are made up of workplace volunteers who are appointed by members in democratic elections.
An informal economy is the part of any economy that is neither taxed nor monitored by any form of government.
Trade Unions in India are registered and file annual returns under the Trade Union Act (1926). Statistics on Trade Unions are collected annually by the Labour Bureau of the Ministry of Labour, Government of India. As per the latest data, released for 2012, there were 16,154 trade unions which had a combined membership of 9.18 million. The Trade Union movement in India is largely divided along political lines and follows a pre-Independence pattern of overlapping interactions between political parties and unions. The net result of this type of system is debated as it has both advantages and disadvantages. BMS is the largest trade union of India.
The workforce or labour force is the labour pool either in employment or in unemployment. It is generally used to describe those working for a single company or industry, but can also apply to a geographic region like a city, state, or country. Within a company, its value can be labelled as its "Workforce in Place". The workforce of a country includes both the employed and the unemployed. The labour force participation rate, LFPR, is the ratio between the labour force and the overall size of their cohort. The term generally excludes the employers or management, and can imply those involved in manual labour. It may also mean all those who are available for work.
Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), meaning "service" in several Indian languages, is a trade union based in Ahmedabad, India, that promotes the rights of low-income, independently employed female workers. With over 1.6 million participating women, SEWA is the largest organization of informal workers in the world. Self-employed women are defined as those who do not receive a salary like that of formally-employed workers and therefore have a more precarious income and life. SEWA is framed around the goal of full employment in which a woman secures for her family: income, food, health care, child care, and shelter. The principles behind accomplishing these goals are struggle and development, meaning negotiating with stakeholders and providing services, respectively.
The social economy is formed by a rich diversity of enterprises and organisations, such as cooperatives, mutuals, associations, foundations, social enterprises and paritarian institutions, sharing common values and features:
The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is the statutory body under the Government of India's Ministry of Labour and Employment, which is responsible for regulation and management of provident funds in India. The EPFO administers the mandatory provident fund. It also manages social security agreements with other countries. International workers are covered under EPFO plans in countries where bilateral agreements have been signed. As of May 2021, 19 such agreements are in place. The EPFO's top decision-making body is the Central Board of Trustees (CBT), a statutory body established by the Employees' Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions (EPF&MP) Act, 1952. As of 2018, more than ₹11 lakh crore are under EPFO management.
Decent work is employment that "respects the fundamental rights of the human person as well as the rights of workers in terms of conditions of work safety and remuneration. ... respect for the physical and mental integrity of the worker in the exercise of his/her employment."
Ruth Manorama is a Dalit social activist from Bangalore, India who fights for Dalit women's rights, the rights of domestic workers and those in the unorganized labour sector, as well as urban slum dwellers. In 2006, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award.
Labour in India refers to employment in the economy of India. In 2020, there were around 501 million workers in India, the second largest after China. Out of which, agriculture industry consist of 41.19%, industry sector consist of 26.18% and service sector consist 32.33% of total labour force. Of these over 94 percent work in unincorporated, unorganised enterprises ranging from pushcart vendors to home-based diamond and gem polishing operations. The organised sector includes workers employed by the government, state-owned enterprises and private sector enterprises. In 2008, the organised sector employed 27.5 million workers, of which 17.3 million worked for government or government owned entities.
The All India United Trade Union Centre (AIUTUC), formerly known as United Trade Union Centre or UTUC-LS, is a Central Trade Union Organisation in India and the labour wing of the Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist). Presently its activities are spread over 19 states. The organisation claims to have 600 affiliated unions, comprising an individual membership of over two million. It is the 6th largest trade union in India. According to provisional statistics from the Ministry of Labour, UTUC-LS had a membership of 1,368,535 in 2002.
The Global Labour University (GLU) is an international network of universities, trade unions, NGOs and the International Labour Organisation. It was initiated in 2002 and offers master's programs, academic certificate programs and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) on sustainable development, social justice, international labour standards and trade/labour unions, economic policies and global institutions.
Indian labour law refers to law regulating labour in India. Traditionally, Indian government at the federal and state levels have sought to ensure a high degree of protection for workers, but in practice, this differs due to form of government and because labour is a subject in the concurrent list of the Indian Constitution. The Minimum Wages Act 1948 requires companies to pay the minimum wage set by the government alongside limiting working weeks to 40 hours. Overtime is strongly discouraged with the premium on overtime being 100% of the total wage. The Payment of Wages Act 1936 mandates the payment of wages on time on the last working day of every month. The Factories Act 1948 and the Shops and Establishment Act 1960 mandates 15 working days of fully paid vacation leaves each year to each employee with an addition 10 fully paid sick days. The Maternity Benefit (Amendment) Act, 2017 gives female employees of every company the right to take 6 months worth of fully paid maternity leave. It also provides for 6 weeks worth of paid leaves in case of miscarriage or medical termination of pregnancy. The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation and the Employees' State Insurance, governed by statutory acts provides for retirement benefits and medical and unemployment benefits respectively. Workers entitled to be covered under the Employees' State Insurance are also entitled 90 days worth of paid medical leaves. A contract of employment can always provide for more rights than the statutory minimum set rights. The Indian parliament passed four labour codes in 2019 and 2020 sessions. These four codes will consolidate 44 existing labour laws. They are: The Industrial Relations Code 2020, The Code on Social Security 2020, The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020 and The Code on Wages 2019.
In 2011, the national census of India found that the total number of child labourers, aged [5–14], to be at 10.1 million, out of the total of 259.64 million children in that age group. The child labour problem is not unique to India; worldwide, about 217 million children work, many full-time.
The Confederation of Free Trade Unions of India is a trade union confederation in India. N. Kanaka Rao is the general secretary of CFTUI. CFTUI became a full member of the World Confederation of Labour in 1999. In 2003 the then CFTUI president Ashok Kumar Trivedi was assassinated.
Renana Jhabvala is an Indian social worker based in Ahmedabad, India, who has been active for decades in organising women into organisations and trade unions in India, and has been extensively involved in policy issues relating to poor women and the informal economy. She is best known for her long association with the Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA), India, and for her writings on issues of women in the informal economy.
Unemployment in India, statistics has traditionally had been collected, compiled and disseminated once every ten years by the Ministry of Labour and Employment (MLE), primarily from sample studies conducted by the National Sample Survey Office. Other than these 5-year sample studies, India has – except since 2017 – never routinely collected monthly, quarterly or yearly nationwide employment and unemployment statistics. In 2016, Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy – a non-government entity based in Mumbai, started sampling and publishing monthly unemployment in India statistics.
Unorganised Workers' Identification Number or UWIN is a proposed unique number to be issued as the identity proof to unorganised workers in India.
