BENGALURU: After facing backlash from industries and businesses on the bill for job reservation for Kannadigas, the state government is again under fire, now from the Karnataka State IT/ ITES Employees Union (KITU), which claims that the government is planning to bring in amendments to relevant Acts to increase working hours for the IT and ITeS sector from 10 hours per day to 14 hours.
“The new bill, ‘Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishment Act 2024’, which is under consultation, has proposed to increase the working hours,” KITU said, and expressed severe resistance to such amendments.
The proposal to amend the bill was presented at a meeting the labour department had with various stakeholders in the industry, KITU stated.
“The bill denies the basic right of any worker to have a personal life. The Act which currently allows a maximum of 10 hours of work per day, including overtime, will be lifted and this will facilitate companies to extend the work hours indefinitely,” it said.
“This amendment will allow companies to go for a two-shift system, instead of the current three-shift system. With this, one-third of the workforce will be thrown out of their employment,” alleged Suhas Adiga, General Secretary, KITU, in a statement.
The IT unions highlighted a report by the Karnataka Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), which found that 45% of IT employees working long hours face mental health issues like depression, while 55% experience physical health problems.
They also pointed to a World Health Organisation (WHO) report, which said that increased working hours will lead to an estimated 35% higher risk of death by stroke and 17% higher risk of dying from ischemic heart disease.
The bill comes at a time when other countries have accepted that overworking affects productivity and are looking at new legislation to help employees. But in Karnataka, it is quite the opposite, KITU pointed out.
The move is also seemingly in line with Infosys founder NR Narayana Murthy's statement urging the country's youth to work 70 hours a week so as to compete with countries like China.
In October last year, Narayana Murthy had said: " My request is that our youngsters must say, 'this is my country, I want to work 70 hours a week'."
This statement was then met with sharp criticism from across the country.
Disagreeing with Murthy, upGrad founder Ronnie Screwvala in a post said boosting productivity isn’t just about working longer hours.
“Boosting productivity isn’t just about working longer hours. It’s about getting better at what you do - upskilling, having a positive work environment and fair pay for the work done. Quality of work done > clocking in more hours,” Screwvala posted on X.
The International Labour Organisation (ILO), a United Nations affiliate, studied work schedules during the pandemic, and in its January 2023 report said: “Reduced working hours and more flexible working time arrangements such as those used during the COVID-19 crisis, can benefit economies, enterprises and workers, and lay the ground for a better and more healthy work-life balance.
The report said enterprises that enforced longer working hours faced disruption from high levels of resignations, and concluded: “Longer hours of work are generally associated with lower unit labour productivity, while shorter hours of work are linked with higher productivity.”
