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Essay: Impact of Covid-19 on employment and rights

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  • Subject area(s): Law essays
  • Reading time: 4 minutes
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  • Published: 3 August 2022*
  • Last Modified: 22 July 2024
  • File format: Text
  • Words: 1,119 (approx)
  • Number of pages: 5 (approx)
  • Tags: Essays on Coronavirus

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Millions of migrants lost their jobs overnight due to the lockdown decision to combat Covid-19, one common enemy for all. The Pandemic has hit hard on the stock markets, leaving a dark impact on entire world’s economy. While nearly all sectors experienced losses, those with the most public exposure are worst hit. The aviation, travel, hospitality industries and daily wage workers have been reported to be worst affected. Only few sectors with the ability to work from home has held up. The Coronavirus, an enigma, has forced employers and industries around the world to explore new technological advancements for their workforce to ‘Work from Home.’ However, these technological advancements would be of no help to our daily wage workers.

Over half of India’s daily wage workers earn between ₹200 to ₹400 a day, much below than the prescribed minimum wage of ₹692, ₹629 and ₹571 for skilled, semi-skilled and unskilled workers respectively (in Delhi). During this distressful phase, the employers/owners must stand hand in hand with their employees/labours and support them for their family’s living. Many daily wage workers who have been unemployed or can’t carry on their daily work post lockdown decision have shifted from their regular work to selling vegetables and fruits for living.

According to data released by Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE), Indian unemployment rate surged at 8.47 per cent in March, highest in the last 43 months. The unemployment rate has further risen from 8.4 per cent in the week ended March 22 to a record high 23.4 per cent as of the week ended April 5. Moreover, India’s employment rate plunged to a record low of 38.2 percent in March, 2020. Pronob Sen, a former Chief Statistician of India, as quoted by LiveMint, estimates that roughly 50 million people lost their jobs two weeks after the lockdown began.

The ‘Right to Work’ subsequently is the most basic component of life to live. To have the basic needs of food, water, clothing and shelter one must work to earn. But the Coronavirus Pandemic has forced a majority of workforce to avoid their regular work, practice social distancing and stay at home. As the most basic component of life to live has been automatically taken away because of the Cornonavirus Pandemic, it has also been reported that employers have started to cut down their workforce in this crucial hour. Except in the case of termination of employment for misconduct, an employer is mandated to provide notice or termination (or salary in lieu of notice) to the concerned employee. As per the Industrial Dispute Act, for the termination of the services of a workman who has been in continuous service for at least one year, an employer shall provide at least one months notice (or salary in lieu of notice) (Notice of Retrenchment).

Through a judicial interpretation of Article 21 the Hon’ble Supreme Court in its landmark judgement in the case of Olga Tellis and Ors. v Bombay Muncipal Corporation and Ors. (AIR 1986 SC 18) held ‘Right to Work’ as a fundamental right inalienable in the ‘Right to Life.’ The Court had observed that “To make living significant there must be a means of living, i.e the means of livelihood. That, if the right to livelihood was not regarded as part of the right to life, the most convenient method for denying a man of his right to life is denying him of his means of earning a living.” The court further held that, which makes life further to live, must be regarded to be an indispensable part of the right to life. The landmark judgement of the Supreme Court recognised the ‘Right to Work’ as being inborn in Article 21. Decoding the Supreme Court’s judgment in Olga Tellis Case right to work is violated –

When a man is fired from his job against the terms of his employment.

When a man is fired from his job infringing upon the officially set down Central or State Laws.

The right prevents the removal of any individual from employment or deprivation of a man from being employed except as per the procedure established by law. In case of infringement of ‘Right to Work’ a writ petition can be filed in the High Court of the respective state under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, or in the Supreme Court of India under Article 32 of the Constitution of India.

Moreover, post lockdown decision, another grave decision, which the companies have been forced to dig into is to cut down their hiring procedure for the current fiscal year. Since many industries have completely stopped operating resulting them with financial crisis, the companies have firmly taken decision to carry on with their existing workforce instead of hiring new personnel’s. Due to the lockdown to battle Covid-19, people have started exploring more working options in the rural areas. “Our data shows that searches for remote works have increased by over 261 per cent as a share of all searches since February 2020,” Sashi Kumar, Managing Director, Indeed India, told IANS. New jobs for professionals in the hotels/restaurants, ticketing/travel/airlines and marketing/advertising/MR/PR sectors witnessed a dip of 51 per cent, 48 per cent and 33 per cent respectively. For the first 20 days in March, decline in hiring rate was marked at 5 per cent further increasing to 18 per cent post lockdown. Because of the lockdown, the decline in hiring rate is likely to show an upward trend in future bringing worries for the new job seekers.

As the new normal starts to take shape, we can expect an end number of changes in the hiring procedure and working conditions for the new workforce as well as personnel’s currently employed in the organisations. The workforce might face everyday screening for temperature and symptoms for Covid-19 before starting work. Another change expected could be mandatory wearing of masks by every person. Employers now might seek latest updated medical history of every employee and with regard to new employees who have not yet started work but are about to in near future, the employers may inquire of COVID-19 symptoms, go through their medical history and assist them with the best possible results in hand keeping confidentiality in mind. Another step, which the organisations now will have to take is to provide their employees with special paid leave if an employee is showing symptoms of the COVID-19. These are frightening times for all, and employees will look to their employers to provide proper leadership and guidance.

As frequently quoted – Human life is the grass; it flowers, withers and gets tossed in the fire. The human race should now be both mentally and physically prepared to adapt the changes in the working environment until we discover treatment for the Coronavirus.

2020-4-23-1587623829

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