The Hidden Chains: Charting Inequitable Workplace Practices in Contemporary India

In today's industrial environment, conflicts among workers and their employers are not uncommon. Thus, preserving good working connections between employers and workers constitutes one of the many desired objectives. A particularly useful tool for achieving the aforementioned is collective bargaining, which is a process of negotiating favourable working conditions between companies and employees, represented by trade unions. However, after attaining independence, India created a variety of laws to control and organise the industrial sector, but none of these addressed unfair work practices. The Indian Parliament decided to incorporate two categories of unfair labour practices—one relating to companies and the other to labour unions—in the Trade Unions (Amendment) Act, 1947. These, however, were not legally binding. The Code of Discipline, 1958, that was adopted by the primary organisations of both employees and employers at the 16 Indian Labour Conference, also included a list of unfair labour practices. The Maharashtra government was the first to effectively implement a specific legislative regulation that prohibited ULPs when it passed the Maharashtra Recognition of Trade Unions and Prevention of Unfair Labour Practices Act in 1971. However, only Maharashtra was subject to the aforementioned law, which constituted state legislation. In its initial report, the National Commission on Labour (1969) suggested that a law be passed that would recruit ULPs and provide them with appropriate penalties. Examining the moral duties of employers, trade unions, and regulatory bodies in maintaining the values of justice, fairness, and dignity in the workplace, it explores the ethical aspects of such behaviour’s.