LAW AND POVERTY ASSIGNMENT ON

Unorganised labour and the law

MADE BY:
SHIMRA
N ZAMAN
B.A.
L.L.B. (Hons.)
IVTH
semester
JAMIA MILLIA ISLAMIA

INDEX

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 Topic Page no.
1. Unorganised Nature of Rural Labour 03
2. Contextual Framework 04
3. Concept and Classification of Rural Labour 06
4. Social Security for the Unorganised Labour 08
5. Organisation of Rural Workers 11
6. Conclusion 13

Unorganised Nature of Rural Labour

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 The factual conditions of agricultural labour are quite different from
non-agricultural labour. Agricultural labour force is widely dispersed on
holdings, often of small size, which are scattered due to fragmentation and dub-
division. In view of this wide scatter of holdings, labourers who work mostly on
daily wages are unorganised. There is no agglomeration of labour on a farm
continuously for a long time to enable them develop collective bargaining
power as in industry. Due to this disability, agricultural labourers are
susceptible to exploitation by land-owners who employ them. Another inherent
weakness is the absence of a fixed occupation as ‘agricultural labour’, for most
workers all the year round. What labourers are concerned with is employment
on remunerative wages, whether it is in agricultural or non agricultural work.
Agricultural operations provide employment on a sufficiently large scale during
busy seasons. During slack seasons, however, they look for alternative avenues
of employment.

The extent of rural unemployment defies assessment as much of it

designed. According to Planning Commission the number of jobless people in
the rural sector is around 20 million, but unofficial estimates put the figure at 45
million. Indeed, in the Indian agricultural sector the intensity of the problem lies
in the fact that agricultural labourers are unemployed for 168 days in a year.
Further unemployment adds to the intensity of the problem, and ‘in rural
context both unemployment and underemployment get inextricably mixed.
Either of it voluntarily or involuntarily adds to the complications in analysing
the situation. But, statistics apart, in the years since Independence, the
developments in rural areas taken together indicate that some relief in terms of
more work has already reached them.’ Thus, the various Five Year Plans,
particularly Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Plans, have visualised the urgent nature of
the problems of unemployment and underemployment and has in fact
formulated schemes for promoting self employment, imparting training
facilities, encouraging commercial banks to advance loans etc.

Contextual Framework
(A) Size of Agricultural labour force

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 India is predominantly an agricultural country. According to the
1981 census, nearly 525.4 million people out of the total population of
685.14 lived in rural areas. Further, 180.5 million people who constituted
and entire labour force in 1971 about 125.8 million i.e. 70.8 percent of the
total work-force were employed in cultivation and agricultural
occupations. The estimated work-force in rural areas in 1978 was 216.16
million as against urban work-force of 44.76 million. Work-force in
agriculture was 192.43 million. The remaining 23.73 million of the rural
work-force was engaged in non-agricultural occupations. However, the
Planning Commission estimated that by 1978, the work-force have gone up
to 265.3 million and out this agriculture would be employing 192.43
million. By 1983 the work-force in agriculture is likely to go up to 213.83
million, indicating an addition to 21.4 million persons in just 5 years.

(B) Agricultural Labourer’s Place in the Economy

India has been and will remain in the foreseeable future, predominance
agricultural nation. Agriculture in its broad connotation accounts for
approximately fifty per cent of our national income. According to the Central
Statistical Organisation the net national product generated in India in 1977-78
was estimated to be Rs.30621 crores and the number of workers on the land
(including land holders and landless) was 192.43. Food grains production was
estimated to be 131.9 million tonnes in 1979-80, when the country suffered a
severe drought. But, in spite of this “agriculture labour occupies the lowest rung
of the rural ladder. A major part of the area in rural areas is concentrated in a
few hands. For example, in 1971 the top 30 per cent of the rural population
claimed nearly 82 per cent of the total assets and within this group the first 10
per cent monopolised as much as 51 per cent of the total assets. On the other
hand, the lowest 10 per cent possessed a mere 0.1 per cent of the assets and the
lower 30 per cent were to be contended with a 2 per cent share. The disturbed of
agricultural holdings, the small and marginal farmers, who constituted over 70
per cent of the land owners, operates barely 24 per cent of the agricultural land.

(C) Rural Poverty

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 Poverty is the greatest economic evil in a welfare state. Agricultural
labour that constitutes about one-fifth of the rural work force is the poorest of
the poor in India. Fifty per cent of the agricultural labour households are
landless and have no asset base. The landless labourers are suffering from a
compounded problem of unemployment, low and uncertain income and
nutritional deficiencies. Low incomes, indebtedness, unemployment and
underemployment, big size of the family illiteracy and ignorance may primarily
be accounted for the high degree of poverty among rural workers.

(D) The Present Attack: Economic Front

Jawaharlal Nehru warned the Constituted Assembly about the

problem of poverty and social change:

“The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the
ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The
ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from
every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering,
so long our work will not be over.”

Concept and Classification of Rural Labour

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 Since the rural labour persons who are agricultural labour, as well as
holders of petty plots or cultivators of small plots on behalf of the rural owners
it is very difficult to identify the agricultural labour as such if one has to go
strictly by the occupation only, because the occupational structure in a village is
overlapping in character. The casual nature of employment, which keeps them
shifting from one farm to another, further adds to the difficulty of identification.
Be it as it may, the rural labour may broadly be classified into the following
categories:

(A) Agriculture Labour

Earlier, the National Commission on Labour defined ‘agricultural

labour’ to be persons whose main source of income is wage employment. It
consists of two sub-categories: (i) landless agricultural labour, and (ii) very
small cultivators whose main source of earnings, due to their small and sub-
marginal holdings, is wage employment. However, the aforesaid definition of
agricultural labour does not accord with the 1981 Census definition ‘agricultural
labour’ wherein it is defined as: “one whose principal means of livelihood is
wage income arising out of the farm labour and other allied activities.” It will
thus be seen that the scope of ‘agricultural labour’ still remains uncertain.

(B) Para-Agricultural Labour

Labour who are employed in activities incidental to or in conjunction

with the agricultural operation subsequent to harvesting such as grains
processing, hand pounding of rice or other food grains, splitting of pulses,
splitting of maize or other food grains or even preparation for selling or delivery
to storage or to market may be called para agricultural labour.

(C) Rural Labour in Allied Activities

The rural labour employed for wages either in cash or in kind or partly
in cash and partly in kind in dairy farming, raising of live stock, bees or poultry
grazing, collective cow dung or selling the agricultural commodities may not be
called ‘agricultural labour’ and may well be classified under the aforesaid
category.

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(D) Plantation Labour

The plantation labour in India includes all those who are employed in
any agricultural undertaking which is mainly concerned with the cultivation or
production for commercial purposes of coffee, tea, sugarcane, rubber, bananas,
cocoa, coconut, groundnuts, cotton, tobacco, fibres, citrus, palm oil, cinchona or
pineapple.

(E) Bonded Labour

Bonded labourers constitute one of the most exploited section of the

rural labour. It is the ‘relic of feudal exploited system’. Till recently there
existed in our country a system of ‘usury’ under which the debtor or this
descendants or dependants had to work for the creditor without reasonable
wages or with no wages in order to extinguish the debt. ‘At times, several
generations work under bondage for the repayment of a paltry sum which had
been taken by some remote ancestor. The interest rates were exorbitant and such
bondage could not be interpreted as a result of a legitimate contract or
agreement. This system implies infringement of basic human rights and
destruction of the dignity of human labour. The ‘practice of forced labour is
condemned in almost every international instrument dealing with human rights.’

(F) Labourer in Forestry

Notwithstanding the fact that the Agricultural Labour Enquiry

Committee and Rural Labour Enquiry Committee treats workers employed in
forestry and timbering operation to be ‘agricultural labour’ they may be kept
under separate category viz., forestry labour.

(G) Rural Labour for Other Work

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 Quite apart from the aforesaid classification there are other classes of
rural labour such as barber, washer man, milkman, carpenter, blacksmith,
cobbler etc. who work either on part time or fulltime basis wages in cash kind or
share of produce on another person’s land.

(H) Self Employed Person

A person may be regarded as self employed in an occupation if he

is working as an employer or own account worker in that occupation. An
own account worker could be both a single worker or joint owner of an
enterprise.

Social Security for the Unorganised Labour

The need for providing social security benefits was recognised by the
International Labour Organisation since its inception through the I.L.O.
Conventions viz., Workmen’s Compensation (Agriculture) Convention, 1921,
Sickness Insurance (Agriculture) Convention, 1933, Invalidity Insurance
(Agriculture) Convention, 1933, Survivors Insurance (Agriculture) Convention,
1933 and Minimum Age (Agriculture) Convention, 1921. India has however not
ratified any of the conventions. But, the framers of Indian Constitution paid due
attention to the amelioration of labourers of the country.

(A) Workmen’s Compensation Act, 1923

The Workmen’s Compensation Act which imposes an obligation upon

employers to pay compensation to workers for accident “arising out of and in
the course of employment”, resulting in death or total or partial disablement is
also applicable to workers “employment in farming by tractors or other
contrivances driven by steam or other mechanical power or by electicity.” From
this it is evident that the Act has an extremely limited application and does not
apply to all agricultural labour.

(B) Employee’s State Insurance Act, 1948

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 The Act is one of the pioneering measures in the area of insurance for
workers. It provides for (i) sickness benefit; (ii) maternity benefit; (iii)
disablement benefit; (iv) dependents benefit and (v) medical benefits. However,
section 1(5) empowers the appropriate Government, in consultation with the
Corporation, to extend the provisions of the Act or any of them to any other
establishment or class of establishment, including agriculture. However, these
benefits, if at all, are available only to a negligible section of agricultural labour,
because of legal, administrative and other problems.

(C) Maternity Benefit Act, 1961

Like the Employee’s State Insurance Act, the Maternity Benefit Act,
1961 empowers the State Government to extend the provisions of maternity to
an establishment or class of establishment including agriculture. This Act
provided for cash maternity benefit for certain periods before and after
confinement, grant of leave and certain other facilities etc. to women. However,
this Act has an extremely limited application and has rarely been applied in
agricultural sector. To avoid this hardship to agricultural women workers
section 6 of the Agricultural Workers (Payment of Pension, Fixation of
Minimum Wages, Compulsory Insurance and other Amenities) Bill, 1983
provides for payment of maternity allowance of rupees fifty per month by the
Government to women agricultural workers for a period of three months and for
one month’s maternity leave with full pay. This provision if passed would
provide much needed relief to women agricultural workers.

(D) Provident Fund, Family Pension and Insurance

The Employee’s Provident Funds Act, 1952 provides for the institution
of provident funds for the employees in the factories and other establishments.
By Labour Provident Fund Laws (Amendment) Ordinance and Act, 1971
provision has been made for Family Pension and Life Insurance Benefit also.
The Employee’s Family Pension Scheme became effective from 1-3-1971.

The Act, however, applies to a very small section of working class.

As on 30th September, 1979 the Act applied to 89977 factories/ establishments.
The number of subscribers to Provident Fund stood around ten million. More
than 11000 establishments with 1.8 million employees belonged to
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industries/employments located predominantly in rural areas. Thus, a vast
majority of rural population has been kept outside the purview of the Act. To
meet this hardship the Agricultural Workers (Payment of Pension, fixation of
minimum wages, compulsory insurance and other amenities) Bill, 1983
provides for Agricultural workers Provident Fund scheme:

“(1) The provident fund facilities shall be extended to the agricultural workers
and for that purpose the Central Government may, by notification in the Official
Gazette, frame a scheme to be called the Agricultural Workers Provident Fund
Scheme.

(2) In particular and without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing power
to frame the Scheme:-

(a) the Government and the employer of agricultural workers each shall
contribute separately to the provident fund at a rate of six and a quarter per cent
of the wages payable to each of the agricultural workers employed by an
employer;

(b) the expenditure on enforcement of the scheme shall be borne by the

Government;

(c) the agricultural worker shall be required to contribute two per cent of the
total wages to the provident fund.”

(E) Unemployment Insurance

More than seventy per cent of the total population live below poverty
line. Needless to mention that most of these unfortunate people are the
agricultural workers. They do not get work throughout the year. They get work
for about three months in a year and for nine months they are unemployed and
suffer from starvation. The reality is that they are ready to work for their
livelihood and for the progress of the country but the Government have failed to
utilise these human resources and this huge manpower is going waste due to
non-utilisation. Another important factor is that the poor and marginal farmers
are losing their land every year and they are merely increasing the number of
agricultural workers, and this is a continuous process. Until and unless the age

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old feudal practice of private money lending denying minimum wages to the
agricultural workers, creating bonded labour and exploiting them economically,
socially or culturally, is prohibited and simultaneously the Government came
forward with financial assistance, they will not be freed from the present social
evils.

Organisation of Rural Workers

(A) Why to Organise

Organisation of rural workers is based on labour philosophy “united

we stand, divided we fall.” The Green Revolution, abolition of Zamindari
System, and introduction of mechanised farming changed the traditional outlook
in the labour management relationship. Next, the needs and expectations of
rural people have changed. Further, about half of the population in rural areas
live below the poverty line. Furthermore, the labour is in the state of bonded
relationship. Indeed, rural labour is exploited by landlords.

(B) Major Constraints in Organisation of Problem Areas of Agricultural

Labour

Notwithstanding Mahatma Gandhi’s emphasis on the value of the self

sufficient village economy agricultural labour have been most neglected and
exploited class of human labour who have suffered because they happen to
belong to economically and socially backward class of society as also from the
‘ravages of sacrifices and famines in different parts of the country.’ Further,
their illiteracy, poverty, indebtness, seasonal nature of work in villages also
create obstacle. Heterogeneity and homogeneity and their migratory character
also work against their organisation. Agriculture workers also do not have
almost any experience in trade unionism. They are even unable to pay even the
membership subscription. Furthermore, there is danger of being suppressed, in
the formative stage of trade unionism by the landlord.

(C) Trade Union Movement in Rural Areas

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 During the freedom struggle several “socio-political organisations such
as ‘Kisan Sabhas’, ‘Krishak Sabhas’ and ‘Peasant Unions’ came into existence
in the late twenties for the benefit of agricultural communities. In 1931 the
Kisan Sabha in Bengal demanded abolition of ‘Permanent Settlement’ and
‘forced labour’. In 1935, the All India Kiasn Sabha took shape. A mass peasant
movement developed after the Second World War in some parts of the country
led by local Kisan Sabhas. By 1945, the Sabha claimed to have enrolled
membership of about 8.25 lakhs. Peasant organisations spread to other parts of
the country to protect the interests of the small farmer and labour from
backward communities and tribes such as halis and warlis in Bombay, and
Pannaiyals in Madras. The Kisan Sabha in 1953 called for abolition of
landlordism without compensation, free distribution of land among agricultural
labour and poor peasants, stoppage of eviction of peasants and substantial
reduction in rent. During post 1960 period, the All India Kisan Sabha agitated
against evictions of small peasants and for radical land reforms, distribution of
waste land, provision of irrigation facilities for all cultivators and for unity
between poor peasantry and agricultural labour who constitute the bulk of the
population in the countryside. During Kharif season of 1982, 2 million
agricultural workers directly participated in the strike and 4 million agricultural
workers participated in propaganda and campaign for struggle in different States
for increase in wages.

(D) Leadership of Rural Trade Unions

One of the significant features of Trade Union Movement in rural areas

is outside leadership. At present the Union of agricultural labour depend on
their leadership on social workers, philanthropists, political parties, voluntary
organisations and Government Agencies.

(E) Plan Schemes for Organising Rural Workers

Various studies and rural labour enquiries conducted from time to time
have revealed that the benefits of many statutory and non-statutory schemes
have not reached the workers in rural areas, primarily due to lack of their own
organisation. Realising the fact that the social gains of economic development
can be secured by rural workers only if they are properly educated and

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organised, a plan scheme was formulated for appointed honorary organisers at
block level to organise the rural workers. The functions of the organisers
broadly are to educate the workers on their rights and duties and stress the value
of organisation, to help them to organise themselves into cooperatives trade
unions, or other forms of organisation, as may be considered necessary. It has
been considered necessary to make the functions of the rural organisations more
broad based.

Conclusion
It is, therefore, suggested that the Trade Unions Act should be amended
to enable agricultural labour to get them registered under the Act. The Labour
Minister announced in the Parliament that the Trade Unions would be amended
to enable agricultural workers to form their own labour organisation. It may,
however, be relevant to note that the Assam Government has enacted the Assam
Shramik Vahini Act, 1959 to facilitate formulation of voluntary association of
workers and registration for better and regular supply of labour for execution of
labour work. Any twenty-five or more workers in an area may constitute a
Shramik Vahini. Similar legislation should be enacted in other States.

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