The passage of India’s four consolidated labour codes on November 21, 2025, marks the most ambitious reorganisation of the country’s labour law framework since Independence, a reform that seeks to replace 29 central laws accumulated over more than a century.
These codes—the Code on Wages (2019), the Industrial Relations Code (2020), the Code on Social Security (2020), and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code (2020)—together attempt to modernise the architecture of labour governance, expand social security, and simplify compliance in an economy where nearly 90 percent of workers remain in the unorganised sector.
Yet their arrival has also ignited intense debates regarding their implications for industrial democracy, worker protections, and the future of collective bargaining.
An impartial observer surveying this transformation must therefore navigate a landscape shaped by history, competing ideologies, and the lived realities of workers and employers.
India’s modern labour regime rests on colonial foundations, beginning with the Factories Act of 1881, crafted partly to appease Lancashire mill owners seeking to neutralise Indian competition and partly under pressure from Indian reformers who exposed appalling working conditions.
Subsequent legislation steadily expanded protections for women and children, addressing issues of health, safety, and working hours.
After 1947, the Constitution placed labour squarely within the framework of social justice, embedding protections such as equal pay for equal work, prohibition of forced labour, and the right to form unions.
However, labour laws grew in a piecemeal, sector-specific manner, creating a maze of overlapping definitions and compliance burdens that both employers and inspectors struggled to navigate.
This fragmentation, long criticised by the Second National Commission on Labour (2002), set the stage for consolidation.
The Code on Wages aims to universalise wage protection by extending minimum wages to all workers, replacing earlier laws that covered only scheduled employments or workers earning wages below certain thresholds. T
he introduction of a national floor wage, the mandate of timely salary payments, and the standardisation of the definition of wages—capping exclusions at 50 per cent—represent structural advances aimed at curbing arbitrary practices and ensuring long-term social security.
The prohibition of gender-based wage discrimination strengthens the principle of equal pay for equal work, an aspiration embedded in earlier statutes but inconsistently implemented.
The Industrial Relations Code, which merges laws on trade unions, standing orders, and industrial disputes, is arguably the most contentious.
It introduces fixed-term employment with parity of benefits and reduces the need for government permission for layoffs by raising the threshold from 100 to 300 workers.
It also mandates a 60-day notice period for strikes across all establishments, not merely public utilities.
These provisions are pitched as steps toward industrial stability and flexibility, but they have stirred deep anxiety among unions who view them as curtailing the right to collective action and weakening job security.
The Code on Social Security represents a notable shift in recognising gig and platform workers—delivery riders, ride-hailing drivers, freelance service providers—who sit outside traditional employer–employee relationships.
By creating a social security fund supported by aggregators’ contributions and broadening eligibility for benefits such as life insurance, disability cover, and maternity protections, the Code marks the first statutory acknowledgement of India’s rapidly expanding digital workforce.
Yet the absence of minimum wage guarantees or clear mechanisms for enforcement tempers the promise of this inclusion.
The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code consolidates thirteen laws governing working conditions across factories, mines, plantations, and docks.
It standardises working hours to eight per day and forty-eight per week, mandates free annual health check-ups, and permits women to work night shifts with requisite safety arrangements.
It also revises thresholds for applicability and streamlines licensing processes, while raising the contract labour applicability limit from 20 to 50 workers.
Taken together, the four codes offer several positive advancements.
Foremost among these is the simplification of India’s previously labyrinthine labour law framework.
Single licences, single returns, and digital compliance systems significantly reduce paperwork, delays, and rent-seeking opportunities historically associated with labour inspection regimes.
This modernisation responds to longstanding industry demands and aligns India with global trends in governance.
The codes substantially expand worker coverage, particularly by universalising minimum wage provisions and extending social security notions to gig workers—a segment projected to exceed two crore by the next decade.
Women’s rights also receive meaningful reinforcement through provisions for equal remuneration, maternity benefits, crèche facilities, and secured night-shift employment.
Fixed-term employment, if implemented with integrity, allows workers engaged in short projects to access statutory benefits earlier denied to them.
Measures such as 15-day reskilling payments for retrenched workers and streamlined dispute resolution mechanisms reflect attempts to balance flexibility with dignity.
Yet these positives coexist with criticisms that merit serious consideration.
Trade unions argue that raising the retrenchment threshold invites “hire-and-fire” practices in most establishments, a concern not unfounded given India’s uneven enforcement landscape.
While the government cites Rajasthan’s earlier experience to claim no adverse effects, empirical clarity remains elusive.
Similarly, the requirement of 60-day strike notices and restrictions during conciliation proceedings undeniably increase procedural hurdles, risking dilution of workers’ bargaining power.
This critique gains further weight when viewed against India’s non-ratification of ILO Conventions 87 and 98 on freedom of association and collective bargaining.
Fixed-term employment, though equitable in theory, may foster long-term precarity if employers use serial contract renewals to avoid creating permanent posts.
Judicial precedents warning against exploitative contractualization add credibility to union apprehensions.
Gig workers’ inclusion in social security, while symbolically significant, remains limited as they remain excluded from protections around wages, safety norms, and industrial relations, leaving them vulnerable in the short term.
Concerns about reduced take-home pay due to revised wage definitions also raise legitimate questions about immediate financial strain on employees, even if long-term savings increase.
Enforcement emerges as a recurring worry.
The shift toward self-certification and algorithm-driven inspection schedules risks undermining the protective purpose of labour laws, especially in sectors where violations are rampant.
India’s history reveals a persistent gap between statutory rights and their real-world delivery, a gap that may widen unless states invest in meaningful enforcement capacity.
Implementation will further vary across states due to labour’s position on the Concurrent List, raising fears of inconsistent interpretations and compliance burdens.
These critiques are not mere ideological objections but arise from reasoned concerns about worker welfare in a country where informality and inequality remain entrenched.
At the same time, the codes’ emphasis on simplification, expansion of coverage, and alignment with contemporary labour markets offers undeniable opportunities.
The question is not whether the codes are inherently pro-worker or pro-business, but whether the balance they intend can be realised through fair, transparent, and participatory implementation.
India’s labour landscape is too vast, diverse, and historically complex to be transformed through legislative consolidation alone.
The ultimate test of these codes will lie in the integrity of state-level rules, the responsiveness of grievance redressal systems, the vigilance of inspectors and courts, and the ability of unions, employers, and governments to engage in genuine social dialogue.
If implemented with empathy and foresight, the codes could indeed strengthen India’s economic foundations without sacrificing the dignity of labour.
In this spirit, the words of Mahatma Gandhi remain profoundly relevant: “The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its weakest members.”
It is this enduring hope—that reform and justice can coexist—that must guide India as it walks this delicate path toward a more equitable world of work.
