The government is engaged in now redefining the labor laws and will be implementing four new Labor Law in the coming week. Apurva Chandra, Senior IAS officer and Secretary in the Ministry of Labour and Employment said, “The government is considering the objections raised by the trade unions to 12-hour daily work shift”. Apurva further added, “See, there will be a maximum of 48 hours of work in a week. If someone works for 8 hours a day, then there will be 6 working days per week. If a company opts for 12-hour working per day for its employees, it means four-day working and three holidays”. This means that the working hours will be extended if the working days are condensed.
Let’s say, a week with four working days will have to fulfill the criterion of 48-hour weekly work hours, which results in a daily shift of 12 hours, that is respectively less if there is a five-day or six-day working week.
Chandra said, “The Ministry is currently engaged prepping appropriate rules and regulations to execute the four new Labour Law Codes in the next few weeks to conduct in labor improvement. The new labor laws will not conciliate the interests of laborers and employees in any way”. Director and Co-founder, iXceed Solutions, Yogita Tulsiani stated, “the 4 days work culture can be implemented according to the functioning of different sectors”. Adding to this she mentioned, “The 4 days work week concept has been in discussion for quite some time now. This debate has started off in Germany that already has the lowest working hours in a week at 34.2 hours. Several companies have experimented with it. But I suppose a 5-day work culture is more effective and contributes to better productivity at the workplace. Since the reduction in working days will reflect in increased working hours, it will be more burden for the employees. The increased timeline of work will disturb the employees stress level per day decreasing the work productivity”.
