BENGALURU: The State Government is pushing private firms, which hire employees on contract, to go in for police verification before recruiting them. This, the government feels, is necessary to ensure the safety of other employees, specially women, and also the employer.Labour Minister Shivaram Hebbar said that over the last few months, many cases have come to their notice where contract workers had criminal background.
“While companies or industries conduct background verification for permanent staff, it is not done for contract workers. Normally, when work or human resource is outsourced, the contractor tends to maximise profits by going in for cheap labour and sometimes ends up hiring people with criminal background,’’ he pointed out.
He said they are now sending letters to all the companies to henceforth follow a system of verifying the antecedents of employees. “Employing such people could be dangerous, especially when there are women employees. This is just a precautionary measure at the workplace.”
FKCCI chief: Background checks should be fast
In Karnataka, a large number of companies/industries have outsourced employees. Speaking to The New Indian Express, Federation of Karnataka Chambers of Commerce and Industries (FKCCI) President Perikal Sundar said at least 75 per cent of the bigger companies, with 50 or more people, have outsourced staff. They usually get human resource from staffing companies.
“There is a need to get their background verified by the local police. We welcome it,’’ he said. He, however, noted that small companies with smaller workforce which do not have outsourced staff, do conduct background checks.
However, Sundar said there is no proper mechanism in the police department to check if a person has a criminal record, unlike the traffic police, who can detect offenders with the use of technology. “In Karnataka, especially in Bengaluru, many workers are from the North and Eastern parts of the country like Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and other states. The process of background verification has to be fast and simple,’’ he pointed out.
Sources in the Labour Department said that background verification is being given a thrust after the recent vandalism at the Wistron facility in Kolar. “Employing workers with suspect background can not only lead to damage of the company’s property, but also creates a bad impression about the government as well as the company. We came up with this proposal to reduce such incidents in future,’’ sources said.
Guidelines soon
The Labour Department is facing the heat from both the Karnataka Lokayukta and High Court over non-payment of wages, workers not being paid on time and other such issues. When asked about this, minister Shivaram Hebbar said they have constituted a committee which will frame guidelines for the benefit of workers. It may be recalled that in January the State Government had issued a circular to all employers to pay salaries of workers who had either tested positive for Covid-19 or were under quarantine.