In a well-attended meeting in Delhi on 17 December 2013, the International Labour Organization (ILO) launched its ambitious India-specific Decent Work Country Programme (DWCP) for next five years. A.C. Pandey, joint secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment (MoLE), in his keynote address, said, “India has not ratified four core ILO Conventions. The government has taken steps to ratify ILO Conventions 138 and 182 on child labour and is taking steps to overcome technical barriers in the ratification of the two Conventions pertaining to collective bargaining and freedom of association, namely, C87 and C98.”

Tine Staermose, director, ILO, said that DWCP was developed with specific priority areas for the ILO for 2013–17, in collaboration with ILO’s tripartite constituents, namely, government, employers and workers. She said, “The four priorities focus on creating jobs, guaranteeing rights at work, extending social protection and promoting social dialogue.”

Agreeing that jobless growth was a concern for India, Pandey said it is a challenge providing employment to people, particularly the youth, women and vulnerable sections, and that the government was giving priority to skill development, to augment the employability of those who join the labour force every year.Pandey further observed that India wanted to achieve universal social security cover for its workers. He said, “India as a welfare state aspires to achieve the minimum social protection for the poor in the coming years.”

The statements by the government, said to be without a definite work programme, were challenged by workers’ representatives in the meeting. N.M. Adyanthaya, India Workers’ Member, ILO Governing Body, and state president, INTUC, Karnataka, pointed out that the Government of India did not ratify the ILO Conventions on child labour despite having declared its intention to do so about two years ago. He also questioned the delay in ratifying ILO Conventions on collective bargaining and freedom of association. He said, “Indian bureaucracy enjoys collective bargaining rights but the same has been denied to workers by raising objections in the nature of technicalities.” He also cautioned that India must not justify trafficking, alluding to the diplomatic row that erupted between India and the USA after an Indian diplomat was arrested on charge of non-payment of minimum wages to her domestic labour.

A.K. Padmanabhan, national president, Centre of Indian Trade Union (CITU), argued that a tripartite dialogue would not have any meaning if bipartite dialogues between industry and workers were not encouraged at work places. He asked, “Why has the decision, taken at the Indian Labour Conference (ILC) to provide contract workers the same wages as that paid to regular workers, not yet been implemented?" He said that decent work would remain a dream so long as the government and the private sector continued to pursue their large-scale contractualisation measures. Emphasising this point, S.P. Tiwari, national general secretary, TUCC, asked, “How is the DWCP aligned with the contractualisation policy of the government?”
Earlier, making a presentation on the macroeconomic labour scenario, Sher Singh Verick of the ILO observed that the latest NSSO figures show that the share of informal workers in the organised sector has increased by around 60 per cent compared to data available for a decade ago. He pointed out that if the Indian economy were to survive the slowdown, manufacturing must survive.

The observation made by B.P. Pant, secretary, Council of Indian Employers, ILO Governing Board, that big industries could not afford to violate labour laws and that such violations usually happened in establishments with less than nine workers was challenged by representatives of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs). They said Pant was passing the buck on to MSMEs without acknowledging the fact that employment generation in India was happening in MSMEs. They wanted to know the specific measures that DWCP was suggesting to encourage employment-generation by MSMEs.
“ILO encourages dialogue among social partners; and everyone must listen to one another,” the ILO director told the gathering.