CHENNAI: Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) state president A Soundararajan said even when the government had restricted the working time to eight hours, many companies were forcing the employees to work for more than 12 hours, resulting in organisations like CITU challenging it in courts.
“Now if they empower the organisations to extend it to 12 hours, there is no doubt that the working hours will be extended to 16 unofficially. This will affect the families and also results in fatigue syndrome now prevalent in countries like Japan,” Soundararajan said.
He warned this could result in spontaneous protests. “We oppose it tooth and nail. We are meeting tomorrow to decide on a future course of action,” he said. State government employees association president S Thamizhselvi and general secretary J Lakshminarayan, in a joint statement, described the bill as a ‘Black Act’ against the workers and demanded the bill be withdrawn immediately.
Meanwhile, the Bank Employees Federation of India state president S Sunil Kumar alleged that while the state government claimed though 12-hour work could be implemented only with the permission of industrial inspectors, it would become a normal practice and will pose threat to workers’ welfare.
According to a statement, the association alleged that labour law changes have made workers furious and warned the government that workers will protest against this decision. Sunil Kumar also added with the advent of technology, people expect the government to reduce the workload not the other way around.