Industry body FICCI seeks stringent laws to deal with labour unrest, says it's No 1 risk to Indian economy

Counterview Desk
The Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry's (FICCI's) annual study, “India Risk Survey 2016”, has ranked strikes, closures and unrest as the most important risk affecting the Indian economy, even as ironically declaring at one place that “industrial strikes and lockouts showed a waning trend this year."
Claiming to have reached the conclusion on the basis of a survey of industry experts and government decision-makers, the survey encompasses 12 key risks that pose threats to the entire economic ecosystem of the country, the report says, strikes, closures and unrest was rated as the highest risk in all four zones – North, East, South and West.
Yet, ironically, the report says, in the first four months of 2015 there were 40 strikes and lockouts, as against 53 and 121 strikes and lockouts respectively during the same period in 2014 and for 2013.

“In terms of the number of workers joining the strikes”, the report says, “It has come down from a high of 1.81 million organised sector workers in 2003 to one million in 2014.”
Providing more data, the report says, “The provisional figures for the first four months of 2015 indicate that less than 100,000 workers were affected as a result of strikes and lockouts. For the same period, the mandays lost due to strikes and lockouts stand at 445,986, as compared to 1,129,425 in 2014.”
Calling “civic and labour unrest” an India-wide phenomenon, affecting “all sectors in varying degrees”, the report significantly suggests that it should be considered a crime punishable under the IPC.

It emphasizes: “A handicap in dealing with various forms of social strife is the nonexistence of a unified set of laws. At present, the laws to deal with communal incidences, caste agitations, and other forms of violent demonstrations are covered under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).”
Seeking a “single and cohesive set of laws will help define the incidents and fix accountability at multiple levels, including the police”, the report says, “Most labour problems are a result of disputes over wages, working conditions or union representation.”
Calling India’s labour laws as “most stringent and complex in the world, complicating the regulatory environment for businesses”, the report says, “There are close to 44 central labour laws and above 100 state labour laws in the country, most of which are archaic in reference to a globalised economic perspective.”
Especially objecting to laws such as the Payment of Wages Act, 1936 and the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 and the the Industrial Disputes Act of 1947, the report says, the latter particularly “requires prior government permission to lay-off workers or close businesses employing more than 100 people.”
“Due to this”, the report underlines, “Businesses have found ways to circumvent these rules through contract workers, which is another point of conflict in the labour-employer ties.”
Insisting that social unrest is particularly affecting the Indian economy, the report says, “The defining event in this category has been the ongoing Jat agitation, demanding OBC reservation for the community in education and government jobs. The agitation during February 2016 alone caused economic losses worth Rs 34,000 crore.”
“Prior to the Jats, the Patels in Gujarat and Kapus in Andhra Pradesh had raised similar demands. Recent developments show that the issue of reservation is far from over. Along with the reservation agitations and resulting violence, social strife remains the most potent risk to business operations”, the report says.

Comments

Covishield controversy: How India ignored a warning voice during the pandemic

Dr Amitav Banerjee, MD * It is a matter of pride for us that a person of Indian origin, presently Director of National Institute of Health, USA, is poised to take over one of the most powerful roles in public health. Professor Jay Bhattacharya, an Indian origin physician and a health economist, from Stanford University, USA, will be assuming the appointment of acting head of the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), USA. Bhattacharya would be leading two apex institutions in the field of public health which not only shape American health policies but act as bellwether globally.

Growth without justice: The politics of wealth and the economics of hunger

By Vikas Meshram* In modern history, few periods have displayed such a grotesque and contradictory picture of wealth as the present. On one side, a handful of individuals accumulate in a single year more wealth than the annual income of entire nations. On the other, nearly every fourth person in the world goes to bed hungry or half-fed.

Thali, COVID and academic credibility: All about the 2020 'pseudoscientific' Galgotias paper

By Jag Jivan The first page image of the paper "Corona Virus Killed by Sound Vibrations Produced by Thali or Ghanti: A Potential Hypothesis" published in the Journal of Molecular Pharmaceuticals and Regulatory Affairs , Vol. 2, Issue 2 (2020), has gone viral on social media in the wake of the controversy surrounding a Chinese robot presented by the Galgotias University as its original product at the just-concluded AI summit in Delhi . The resurfacing of the 2020 publication, authored by Dharmendra Kumar , Galgotias University, has reignited debate over academic standards and scientific credibility.

'Serious violation of international law': US pressure on Mexico to stop oil shipments to Cuba

By Vijay Prashad In January 2026, US President Donald Trump declared Cuba to be an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to US security—a designation that allows the United States government to use sweeping economic restrictions traditionally reserved for national security adversaries. The US blockade against Cuba began in the 1960s, right after the Cuban Revolution of 1959 but has tightened over the years. Without any mandate from the United Nations Security Council—which permits sanctions under strict conditions—the United States has operated an illegal, unilateral blockade that tries to force countries from around the world to stop doing basic commerce with Cuba. The new restrictions focus on oil. The United States government has threatened tariffs and sanctions on any country that sells or transports oil to Cuba.

The 'glass cliff' at Galgotias: How a university’s AI crisis became a gendered blame game

By Mohd. Ziyaullah Khan* “She was not aware of the technical origins of the product and in her enthusiasm of being on camera, gave factually incorrect information.” These were the words used in the official press release by Galgotias University following the controversy at the AI Impact Summit in Delhi. The statement came across as defensive, petty, and deeply insensitive.

When grief becomes grace: Kerala's quiet revolution in organ donation

By Vidya Bhushan Rawat* Kerala is an important model for understanding India's diversity precisely because the religious and cultural plurality it has witnessed over centuries brought together traditions and good practices from across the world. Kerala had India's first communist government, was the first state where a duly elected government was dismissed, and remains the first state to achieve near-total literacy. It is also a land where Christianity and Islam took root before they spread to Europe and other parts of the world. Kerala has deep historic rationalist and secular traditions.

When a lake becomes real estate: The mismanagement of Hyderabad’s waterbodies

By Dr Mansee Bal Bhargava* Misunderstood, misinterpreted and misguided governance and management of urban lakes in India —illustrated here through Hyderabad —demands urgent attention from Urban Local Bodies (ULBs), the political establishment, the judiciary, the builder–developer lobby, and most importantly, the citizens of Hyderabad. Fundamental misconceptions about urban lakes have shaped policies and practices that systematically misuse, abuse and ultimately erase them—often in the name of urban development.

Activists warn of gendered impact of VB-GRAMG Act, seek return to MGNREGA framework

By A Representative The All-India Feminist Alliance (ALIFA), along with the Agrarian Alliance and Workers’ Forum of the National Alliance of People’s Movements (NAPM), has written to President Droupadi Murmu urging her to call upon Parliament to repeal the newly enacted Viksit Bharat–Guarantee for Rozgar and Ajeevika Mission (Gramin) Act, 2025 (VB-GRAMG Act) and restore and strengthen the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

Stray dogs, an epsilon (ϵ) problem: Of child labour, and the art of misplaced priorities

By Bhaskaran Raman The Greek alphabet ϵ (epsilon) is used in maths and science to denote a quantity which is not zero, but extremely small *** Since the Supreme Court's interim order on the issue of stray dogs came out on 07 Nov 2025, there have been a range of opinion pieces speaking for the voiceless. Most of them take the stance that there is a "problem" with stray dogs, but that we need a humane solution. I agree with this broadly, but I think we need new terminology to talk about this.

Search This Blog