CITU Debunks Govt Claims on Four Labour Codes, Demands Repeal
The Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has debunked the government’s fraudulent claims made on the four Labour Codes and demanded repeal of the decision to make them effective from November 21, 2025 as announced in the PIB statement of the same day. The government has portrayed the Codes as “pro-worker” and “modernising labour regulations”, but, as CITU General Secretary Tapan Sen points out, in reality they constitute the most sweeping and aggressive abrogation of workers’ hard-won rights and entitlements since Independence, aimed at facilitating corporate exploitation, contractualisation and unrestrained hire-and-fire.
The CITU has made the following point-wise rebuttal of the false claims made by the government:
1. On the claim of “simplifying 29 laws into 4 Codes”:
The so-called simplification has been used as a cover to dilute, abolish and dismantle protective provisions of the existing labour laws such as the Industrial Disputes Act, Factories Act, and Mines Act, Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act etc. Rather than strengthening rights, the Codes dismantle job security, dilute the role of labour departments pushing them, and push the entire workforce into precarious employment. With more than 90 per cent of the workforce in the unorganised sector, who will provide and guarantee the issuance of appointment letters?
2. On “Universal Social Security for all, including GIG and platform workers”:
The Social Security Code does not guarantee universal coverage in any sense. Sections 109–114 merely talk about schemes for GIG and platform workers, without mandatory timelines, defined benefits or allocations. The proposed aggregator contribution of 1–2 per cent of turnover is too inadequate to fund pension, provident fund or health benefits. Aadhaar-based portability, etc., are all meaningless unless employment relations and employers’ obligations are ensured through statutory provisions, employment records and proper enforcement machinery – which are all absent in the Code. The Social Security Code has not decreased the threshold number of employees in the EPF, ESI & Gratuity provisions from the existing threshold of 20 and 10 respectively and wage ceiling in the EPF & ESI for the coverage. But the PIB statement deceptively claims that all workers will get PF, ESIC, insurance and other social security benefits.
3. On “minimum wage coverage for all and a national floor wage”:
The Code on Wages does not provide a scientific living wage as per 15th ILC norms and the Supreme Court Judgmenton the issue. An abysmally low national floor level wage, which also varies in different regions, will lead to many states to reducing the existing minimum wages. Moreover, calling it a “national floor level” is a substandard deceptive tactic since it differs from region to region as stated in the Code. With weakened inspection and enforcement systems, over 45 per cent of workers already earning below minimum wages (as per the PLFS survey 2023) will continue to remain outside any meaningful protection. Moreover, a huge section of the workforce, such as the scheme workers, is still outside the purview of this minimum wage.
4. On Preventive Health Care:
Instead of extending the ESIC facilities to all employees and ensuring health care facilities with the contribution of employers to ESIC without any threshold limit of workers and wage ceiling, the Code talks of only statutory health check up after 40 years at the employers cost. This is another fraud on the employees and workers. For the coverage of establishments below 10, it is optional and voluntary for employers, which most do not do. Violation, even when it is mandatory, is rampant.
5. On Timely Wages:
The Code on Wages has removed the existing provision of imposing fines up to 10 times even for the first time delay in payment of wages and for illegal deduction. It deceptively claims to ensure timely wages, a cruelty meted out to workers just to favour employers. Further the provisions of payment of wages which were applicable to MNREGA are now made non-applicable through the Code on Wages just to abdicate the government’s liability for timely payment to the most vulnerable rural sections of workers. The central share of wages of millions of scheme workers is pending for months even as of now; the government claims that the Code will ensure timely payment of wages to all, though scheme workers are not covered.
6. On “fixed-term employment ensuring equal benefits”:!
Fixed-term employment legalises permanent temporariness in perennial and core jobs. Employers/corporates are endowed with unrestricted power to replace permanent jobs with short-term contracts. Gratuity after one year does not compensate for the loss of continuity of service, seniority, and actual benefits. This provision is aimed at destroying stable employment and weakening unionisation.
7. On “equal opportunities and safer conditions for women workers”:
Allowing night shifts without enforceable safeguards and consent leads to coerced consent in a distressed labour market. The Codes do nothing to address the real problems faced by women workers, i.e., contractualisation, unequal pay, harassment, unsafe workplaces and denial of maternity benefits. Prohibitions on gender discrimination remain meaningless without strong enforcement, which the Codes dismantle completely.
8. On “improved protection for MSME, plantation, mine and construction workers”:
Self-certification and exemption mechanisms and above all increase in the threshold level for coverage, undermine, even negate, the safety and labour standards in MSMEs, leaving labour totally unprotected. The Construction Workers Welfare Fund continues to remain underutilised (besides promoting large-scale evasion of cess payment by employers – over Rs. 38,000 crores unspent (CAG 2022); and the Codes provide no mechanism for transparency or guaranteed payouts. The dilution of inspections in hazardous sectors like mining and plantations will worsen India’s already alarming workplace fatality rate.
9. On “strengthened, faster industrial dispute resolution”:
The Industrial Relations Code cripples the right to strike by imposing various conditions and for all sectors, banning strikes during and after conciliation and extending restrictions across all establishments. Raising the retrenchment, layoff and closure threshold to 300 workers for prior government permission enables hire-and-fire in more than 90% of Indian workplaces. More than 12 lakh disputes are currently pending for adjudication; the average disposal period of disputes-adjudication ranges from three to five years for more than 75% of the disputes. Implementation of the Labour Codes will make the situation worse since the government, vide its Shrama Shakti Niti already put out in the public domain, has already confirmed the abdication of its mandatory responsibility of implementing labour laws by “repositioning itself from compliance of laws to the role of a facilitator of employment”.
10. On “inspector-cum-facilitator improving transparency”:
Replacing independent inspectors with facilitators, shifting to algorithm-based inspections, and dismantling complaint-based inspection are direct moves towards deregulation. Centralised random inspections and compliance on self-certification will fuel violations of wages, safety norms, working hours and social security provisions. Workers lose an essential legal mechanism to fight exploitation.
11. On “labour flexibility creating more jobs and investment”:
The claim is absolutely fraudulent. There is no evidence, national or international, that diluting labour rights creates employment. Rajasthan’s labour law changes (2014–15), often cited by the government, failed to increase jobs and instead accelerated contractualisation. India continues to face record unemployment and increasing informalisation, rather precarisation of employment relations even in formal sectors and consistent stagnation/decline in employment generating investment, which cannot be denied by even official reports including from the RBI. These Codes will worsen the crisis manifold by replacing secure jobs with disposable contract labour, apprentices/trainees and interns.
12. On “extensive stakeholder consultation”:
The Indian Labour Conference (ILC), the highest tripartite official forum in the country, has not been convened for the last ten years, despite consistent persuasion by the trade unions. All Central Trade Unions, including CITU, AITUC, INTUC, HMS, SEWA, AIUTUC, AICCTU, UTUC, TUCC and others, unanimously opposed the Codes in every consultation with concrete irrefutable arguments supported by documentary evidences. The government ignored every major objection raised by the trade unions. The Codes were pushed through Parliament without the opposition present, making a mockery of democratic procedure.
The four Labour Codes are an instrument of corporate-driven labour market deregulation, aimed at destroying job security, suppressing the right to strike, dismantling labour inspection, expanding contractualisation and fixed-term employment, weakening unions and collective bargaining and limiting social security to token schemes – all aimed at a mad drive of minimising labour costs and dismantling labour rights.
The CITU has called upon the working class of India to join the united call of the Joint Platform of Central Trade Unions to combatively defy and resist these atrocious anti-people measures through militant united struggle both at sectoral and national level – asserting collectively the rights that the government is attempting to snatched away. The CITU has saluted the workers for the immediate spontaneous protests, and urged its unions and workers across sectors, industries and regions to intensify united struggles, join broader joint trade union actions, and build a powerful resistance to defend labour rights, social security and democratic freedoms. The working class will immediately rise with full strength on November 26, 2025.
The working class of India has fought and defeated anti-worker policies before; it will do so again.
