TN amends Factories Act to increase working hrs up to 12 hrs

CHENNAI: Amid the stiff opposition from the political parties, including allies of the ruling DMK, the State government passed a Bill to amend the Factories Act, 1948 to insert a provision namely "65A-Power to exempt in special cases" so as to empower the government to exempt any factory or group of factories from certain provisions dealing with the working hours of workers and wages.

The Amendment Bill empowers the State government to exempt any factory or group or class or description of factories from any or all of the provisions of Sections 51, 52, 54, 55, 56 or 59 of the Factories Act, 1948 or the rules made thereunder.

CITU state president A Soundararajan said that the Bill provisions are aimed at open-endedly to empower employers to evade all their statutory obligations in respect of working hours in the workplaces through such mass-scale exemption mechanism in respect of almost all provisions of the Factories Act, both directly and indirectly related to regulations of working hours.

"At a time when Western Countries are reducing working hours to 6-7 hours a day and a five-day workweek, increasing the working hours is a retrograde step and a historical blunder. It will have serious health implications, particularly for women," he said.

Soundararajan said that the statement of objects and reasons for the bill states that it was mooted based on the representations from the industries and industry associations to bring out working hour reforms. "But the government did not discuss the bill which will have serious implications for the workers with the trade unions in the State labour advisory board," he said, demanding the government repeal the bill.

About the Act:

The Factories (Tamil Nadu Amendment) Bill seeks to insert "65A-Power to exempt in special cases" empowering the state government to exempt any factory or group or class or description of factories from any or all of the provisions of Sections 51, 52, 54, 55, 56 or 59 of the Factories Act, 1948 or the rules made thereunder.

What are the sections of the Factories Act to be exempted?

• Section 51 deals with weekly working hours- capping the same to 48 hours

• Section 52 deals with weekly holidays- saying the first day of the week

• Section 54 deals with Daily Working Hours- no worker shall be required or allowed to work for more than nine hours in any day

• Section 55 speaks on Intervals for Rest- no worker is required or allowed to work more than five hours before he/she has had an interval of rest of at least half an hour

• Section 56 deals with the spread-over- this section tends to limit the periods of an adult worker in a factory to a spread-over of ten and half hours on any day and he/ she cannot be confined more than that period in the factory

• Section 59 deals with overtime and its wages.