Justices M.M. Sundresh and R. Hemalatha said: “Prima facie, we find that exploitation is going on, spanning the entire State, with respect to the employers in different industries.”

NEWS STATES TAMIL NADU
TAMIL NADU
Exploitation of migrant workers can’t continue: Madras High Court
Mohamed Imranullah S.
CHENNAI 12 SEPTEMBER 2020 03:33 IST
UPDATED: 12 SEPTEMBER 2020 03:57 IST

HC wants Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act to be implemented in letter and in spirit
Satisfied prima facie that employers across the State have been exploiting migrant workers for long, the Madras High Court has decided to pass comprehensive orders requiring the principal employers and contractors to get registered under the Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act of 1979.

Passing interim orders on a couple of public interest litigation petitions filed by Chennai-based sociologist T. Venkata Naga Narasimham, Justices M.M. Sundresh and R. Hemalatha said: “Prima facie, we find that exploitation is going on, spanning the entire State, with respect to the employers in different industries.”

“Therefore, what is required, on the first hand, is to undertake a proper exercise of registration, by including industries which have not done so. Unless registration is done under the Act, there will not be any recognition of such employees. Secondly, it has to be seen that those who have registered are complying with provisions of the Act,” they said.

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The judges pointed out that it was mandatory under the Act for employers and contractors to register themselves if they engage more than five migrant workers, and furnish, periodically, the details of the employees engaged by them not just to Labour Department officials in Tamil Nadu, but also to those in the workers’ home States.

Tardy compliance

“Even here, we find that compliance is very tardy, starting from the filing of the annual return… When a benefit is derived from such employees, the duty enjoined upon the employers of the State cannot be ignored,” the judges said, and insisted that either the Advocate General or an Additional Advocate General appear on behalf of the State on September 21 and assist the court in disposing of the two PIL petitions.

In his affidavit, the litigant had pointed out that the 1979 Act mandated the issuance of passbooks with passport size photographs to every migrant worker. The passbooks must contain details of employment, modes of payment of wages, displacement allowance, return fare payable on expiry of period of employment, deductions made and other such particulars in both English and the language known to the workers.

The Act also speaks about the wages to be paid to the workers and other conditions of service. But in reality, none of these legal provisions are followed by the employers or contractors at the ground level, leading to exploitation of migrant labourers, who do not get any statutory benefit and have been left in a lurch during a crisis like COVID-19, the litigant said. The petitioner said the State was clueless about the number of migrant workers in the State and the places where they were concentrated when the lockdown was at its peak between March and August, and as a result, thousands had to face a great amount hardship in returning to their home States.

Now, normalcy was returning due to relaxations in lockdown norms and workers had also started returning to Tamil Nadu. The State government had issued standard operating procedures to be followed by employers who engage such workers. However, the SOPs primarily focus on arresting the spread of COVID-19 and not on the strict implementation of the provisions of the Act, the petitioner said.