India’s new labour codes, implemented abruptly on November 21, 2025, represent one of the most sweeping overhauls of workers’ rights in decades—an ambitious reform that consolidates 29 colonial-era laws into four streamlined codes. While the government touts this as a “game changer” for modernization and investor confidence, the reality for India’s 500 million workers tells a far darker story: systematically dismantled protections, weakened unionization, and deepened precarity.
Assault on Collective Action
The Industrial Relations Code imposes draconian restrictions on workers’ ability to strike, requiring prior notice for all strikes and expanding the definition to include even mass casual leave—effectively criminalizing spontaneous collective action. The requirement for a single negotiating union with 51% support fragments representation, creating internal divisions that benefit management at the expense of solidarity. Union registration processes are now more vulnerable to state intervention, with provisions that make de-registration easier, fundamentally undermining the collective bargaining power workers have fought decades to build.
The Firing Line Gets Longer
Perhaps the most glaring pro-employer tilt is the tripling of the layoff threshold—from 100 to 300 employees—before government permission is required for retrenchment. This change gives medium-sized firms carte blanche to dismiss workers without state oversight, stripping job security from hundreds of thousands at precisely the moment when algorithmic management and flexible labour models are making employment increasingly precarious. The codes may promise “timely wages” and “universal minimum wages,” but what good is a guaranteed wage when workers can be fired at will?
Working Hours: The 8-Hour Illusion
While the government claims to have capped working hours at 8–12 per day with a 48-hour weekly limit, critics argue that the 12-hour “flexibility” effectively erodes the historic 8-hour workday norm. The codes permit extended factory shifts with “consent-based” overtime paid at double rates – but this consent is largely theoretical in a labour market defined by vast power asymmetries between employers and job-seekers. The mental and physical health consequences of longer shifts, particularly in manufacturing sectors, remain unaddressed.
Wage Definition: A Double-Edged Reform
The new codes introduce a universal definition of “wages” requiring the basic salary to constitute at least 50% of total compensation—a move that increases provident fund and gratuity contributions but simultaneously reduces take-home pay for many workers. The abolition of scheduled occupations for minimum-wage applicability raises concerns about whether the “floor wage” mechanism will adequately protect the lowest-paid workers, particularly in unorganized sectors. While the codes promise equal pay for equal work across genders, enforcement mechanisms remain unclear.
The Invisible Workforce Left Behind
The codes’ most devastating omissions concern informal and women workers. Despite representing the majority of India’s workforce, informal workers—daily-wagers, migrant labourers, domestic workers—face potential exclusion from social-security provisions that depend on establishment-size thresholds and formal registration. For women, the codes permit night shifts with “adequate safety measures,” but fail to account for the disproportionate burden of domestic labour and caregiving responsibilities that flexible schedules intensify. The promised expansion of ESIC coverage and maternity benefits offers little if the underlying employment remains precarious and unprotected.
A Silver Lining: Gratuity Reform
Amid this bleak landscape, one provision deserves genuine appreciation: the reduction of gratuity eligibility from five years to just one year of continuous service. This reform particularly benefits fixed-term and contract employees in high-attrition sectors who previously lost gratuity payments after years of service. The expansion of the wage base for gratuity calculation also increases payouts, offering tangible financial security to workers navigating increasingly unstable employment conditions.
The Road Ahead
Trade unions across the political spectrum—representing millions of workers—have condemned the codes as an “anti-worker, pro-employer fraud” implemented without consultation or a meaningful transition period. Nationwide protests erupted immediately, with workers burning copies of the codes in multiple cities. The government’s claim that these reforms will boost manufacturing and formalization rings hollow when the very mechanisms that protect workers from exploitation are being systematically dismantled. As India races to attract investment and expand its manufacturing base beyond 20% of GDP, the question remains: at what cost to the dignity, security, and collective power of those who actually create the wealth?
