Death of EI worker shines light on India’s vulnerable workforce By Reuters

Author: Shivam Patel

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Authorities in two Indian states driving its economic growth are drawing up tougher workplace rules and inspections to protect white-collar workers after the death of a young executive at global consultancy Ernst & Young (EI) blamed on her family. to overwork.

India’s decades-old labor laws largely focus on blue-collar workers, leaving others vulnerable to workplace abuses such as punishing work schedules and summary dismissals, unions say.

Labor authorities in the states of Maharashtra and Karnataka said they had stepped up controls on office practices at private firms in an effort to protect workers after a spate of complaints, four officials in the two states told Reuters.

The capital of Maharashtra is India’s financial hub, Mumbai, and Karnataka is home to Bengaluru, India’s ‘Silicon Valley’, home to hundreds of strategic centers of global firms.

The Maharashtra government is considering a proposal by the employment body to regulate the hiring and firing practices of firms through a new law or guidelines that would cover all corporate workers, including management staff, two state officials said, requesting anonymity. It will be implemented after the approval of the state cabinet, officials said.

In Bengaluru, two labor officials said the department had made inspections more frequent to verify that companies were following overtime rules and time-keeping “following complaints from workers about overwork”.

“In India and other South Asian countries, many forms of labor rights protection are given only to blue-collar workers, and others are often not recognized as workers,” Elena Gerasimova, labor law and labor standards specialist at the International Labor Organization (ILO ), he told Reuters.

“From the point of view of ILO standards and values, all those working, both blue-collar and white-collar, as well as managerial workers, will have rights,” she added in her emailed comments.

‘REVERSE’ WORK

In recent months, federal lawmakers have also spoken about the need for tougher laws to protect corporate workers from exploitation.

Service-sector unions have been lobbying for such measures for some time, but officials said it gained momentum amid allegations of exploitation at EI following the July death of Anna Sebastian Perrail, a 26-year-old executive auditor who worked in the firm’s offices in the city of Pune near Mumbai.

In a letter to the president of EI India, Peraila’s mother said her daughter faced “several” jobs, unusual and long working hours and a lack of managerial support at EI, which affected her health and led to her sudden death from a stroke four of the month. to work.

The Federal Ministry of Labor has opened an investigation into these allegations. EI said it attached the “utmost importance” to the welfare of all workers and was receiving the correspondence from Peraille’s family with “the utmost seriousness and humility”.

Some executives at EI and other firms said they did not seek justice even when they felt they had been unfairly targeted.

Amit, who declined to give his last name, said he worked at EI as a tax consultant and had complained to labor authorities in Mumbai about what he said was his unfair dismissal last year. He said he was told during a hearing in November that he did not count as a labor force under Indian laws.

“The labor officer who heard my case told me that I was not like a construction or road worker,” said Amit, 26.

EI and Mumbai labor services did not respond to requests for comment on the case.

An industry source said firms should respect overtime pay rules and adhere to employment contracts, but said the services industry, particularly the IT industry, was feeling the impact of a global drop in demand and required some flexibility in managing workers.

“And they have to protect their business,” said the source, requesting anonymity.