No Labor Law In Karnataka For 3 Months: Employers Can Force 10 Hours/Day Work For Employees

The Karnataka government on Friday took a step towards speedy and efficient recovery of factory production.

In a surprise move, the Karnataka government exempted all factories from provisions of labour law, on working hours for weekly and daily basis. It has done this for a period of three months, starting from May 22 and extending up to August 21.

Provisions Under this Exemption

In a notification sent out by Labour Under-Secretary K. Shivalingaiah, all the the factories registered under the Factories Act, 1948 shall be exempted from the provisions of Section 51 (weekly hours) and Section 54 (daily hours) with effect from May 22 to August 21, 2020.

According to the current Labour Laws working hours, factories cannot allow workers to work for more than eight hours a day and 48 hours a week.

The notification issued, allows the factories to extend their working hours up to 10 hours a day and 60 hours a week till August 21. 

The exemption order, however, mandates that no adult worker shall be allowed or required to work in a factory for more than 10 hours in a day and 60 hours in a week.

Note that the provisions of Section 59 pertaining to overtime wages shall continue to be applicable without any change.

Why This Tweak in the Labour Laws

By exempting the provisions of the Labour Laws, 1948, allowing workers to work for up to 10 hours a day or 60 hours a week, the Karnataka govt has a good reason to do so.

This exemption will enable factories, including manufacturing and processing units across the state to make their employees work for more than the stipulated hours on daily and weekly basis.

This is so that for a brief period of 3 months, the state government could increase the factory production and make up for the loss of 40 man-days since March 25 when the lockdown was enforced and extended till May 3 for the industrial sector to contain the coronavirus pandemic.