There is no amendment to the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972 for the past 50years. As per the present Payment of Gratuity Act, workers are getting 15days’ wages per year of service as Gratuity. Only the basic wage and dearnessallowance of the workers are considered for the calculation of payment ofgratuity. As you are well aware that the majority of the workers engaged forwork in Unorganised Sector are getting very low wages and naturally theirabasic wages and dearness allowance together will be always low. As such, asper the present act, they are getting very low amount of Gratuity at the timeof their retirement. This low amount of Gratuity will not help the workers ofunorganised sector in any way to make out a decent retired life. Wherefore, itis necessary to bring an amendment to the Payment of Gratuity Act.
At present Rs.21,000-00 is fixed as wage limit for the coverage of ESI scheme.As such a large section of workers are out of ESI scheme and they are facinglot of hardship for meeting the expenses for any kind of sickness. Workerswho are out of coverage of ESI scheme are covered under private medicalainsurance schemes. One has to get admitted in hospital for 24 hours to claimthe insurance amount for treatment under private medical insurance scheme.Parents of the workers are not covered under private Mediclaim policies.Treatment is given for only selected diseases. Workers are not getting wagebenefits for sickness under private medical schemes. Compensation Benefitsfor employment injury and loss of earning power are not there in privatemedical insurance schemes. Treatment is given only for fixed insured sum,whereas, under ESI scheme, treatment is given for the whole family includingparents of the workers and for all diseases, and also, employees are gettingleave wages for the sickness period including lifetime pension foremployment injuries and death. There is a lobby between private insurancefirms and the private hospitals, and the private hospitals swindle moneyfrom the employees in the guise of mediclaim policies. Employees StateInsurance Scheme is considered as one of the best Social Security Scheme inthe world. As such it is necessary to remove the wage limit for the coverage of ESI scheme, so that all the employees will get health and other related benefits.
Due to Contract Labour System, there are no permanent jobs nowadays in the manufacturing sector and service industry. As per law, contract labourers are not permitted to be engaged for production work of permanent nature, but the present law is thrown to the winds and contract labourers are engaged for all sorts of production works of permanent nature and also not paid wages equal to the wages paid to permanent workers as per the Contract Labour (Abolition & Regulation) Act. Contract labourers are paid very low wages and none of the statutory benefits is extended to them. Contract labourers are working forblow wages due to extreme poverty and they are subjected to lot of exploitation.
As such it is necessary to ban the contract labour system.
As such our union is carrying out a Signature campaign by lakhs of workersfor the following demands which will be submitted to the Hon’ble PrimeMinister of India:
* Instead of 15 days’ wages per year of service, 60 days’ wages peryear of service to be paid as Gratuity by bringing an amendment tothe Payment of Gratuity Act.
* Wage limit to be removed for the coverage of ESI Scheme
* Contract Labour System to be abolished.
Amendments to the Acts for the above demands are to be carried out by theCentral Government. Our union has sent letters to all the Parliament Membersand Rajya Sabha Members of Karnataka requesting them to raise this issue inthe Parliament. We have requested all central trade unions to urge the centralgovernment for the fulfilment of above demands.
Our union urges the Hon’ble Prime Minister to consider the memorandumasigned by lakhs of workers and to take suitable action for fulfilment of abovedemands for the benefit of working class of the whole nation.
At press club of Bangalore the above all statements were released on behalf of Karnataka Wotkers’ Union(R) by E. K. N. RAJAN-General secretary, R. D. Melchior-Jt. Secretary.
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