Labor market reforms

My latest Governance Agenda column in Pragati is about one of the most important pillars of India's second generation reforms - labor market reforms.

Update 1 (8/6/2014)

Rajasthan government takes the plunge with labor market reforms. The state cabinet has cleared state-level amendments to Industrial Disputes Act, Contract Labor Act, and Factories Act. The changes to the ID Act increases the threshold for government permission for firing labor from 100 to 300 workers. The Indian Express reports,

The Rajasthan Cabinet has also introduced a three-year time limit for raising disputes and increased the percentage of workers needed for registration as a representative union from 15 per cent to 30 per cent. In the context of politicisation of trade unions, this raises the bar. As far as the Contract Labour Act is concerned, the amendments raise the applicability of the Act to companies with more than 50 workers from the current 20. In the Factories Act, currently applicable to premises with more than 10 workers with power and 20 without power, the amendments raise these numbers to 20 and 40, respectively.