Economic Survey calls for more intense exploitation of workers:
Presenting capitalist interests as national interest

The latest Economic Survey, prepared by the Finance Ministry and tabled in Parliament on 22nd July 2024, a day before the presentation of the Union Budget 2024-25, has called for further intensifying the exploitation of workers in our country. This has been presented as the necessary condition for attracting foreign capitalists to invest in India, which is alleged to be necessary for accelerating economic growth and achieving the goal of Viksit Bharat.

The bourgeoisie’s economic experts have argued that Indian labour laws must be reformed to permit longer working hours and lower overtime payments so that multinational companies can exploit Indian workers at least as intensely as they do in China, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and other countries. Moreover, they claim that legalising more intense exploitation is needed for creating more jobs for women and men. Thus, the Economic Survey states, “Current labour regulations have unintended adverse repercussions for both the general workforce and women specifically. Although designed to safeguard women and enforce rigorous standards for all employees, these regulations inadvertently restrict employment opportunities and impede overall job creation.”

The ES goes on to compare four labour standards in India with other countries.

Extension of working hours

The Economic Survey claims that many countries offer more flexibility in organising work hours and allow for more overtime work compared to India. While working hours are limited to 10.5 hours per day in India, the limit is higher or there is no limit in some other countries, claims the ES.

Flexible working hours is promoted by the bourgeoisie claiming that it is in the interests of the workers because it will allow them to work longer hours and earn more additional income. But the fact is that workers need adequate time for rest and recreation, to spend with their family, etc.

A strict legally enforced limit on the length of the working day is a right that belongs to all wage and salaried workers, without exception, because wage workers are not slaves. Extending the working day serves the interests of capitalists to extract more profits from every worker every day. This is why there has been widespread opposition by workers’ unions to the attempts of various state governments to amend the law to extend the length of the working day from 8 to 12 hours. The Government of Tamil Nadu has been forced to retract such an amendment in the face of militant opposition from the workers’ unions.

Lowering of overtime wage premium

The Economic Survey compares the rate of payment for overtime work in India with the corresponding rates in some other countries. While in India employers are required to pay overtime hours of work at a rate which is 100 percent higher than the average rate for normal working hours, such additional payment is only 50 percent in China, Vietnam, Thailand and Malaysia. Based on this observation, the Economic Survey claims that India is losing out because multinational companies prefer to invest in countries with lower overtime costs.

The truth on the ground is that jobs in our country are increasingly contractual jobs, not only in private companies but in central and state government as well. Jobs on temporary and fixed term contracts, in banks, government agencies, hospitals, schools and universities – including key functions such as teachers, nurses, doctors and paramedics — are the norm. These workers enjoy no fixed working hours, no overtime payment or social security of any kind. The Economic Survey is seeking to justify further amendments to labour laws that will legitimise this fully.

Reducing per-worker space standards

According to the Economic Survey, India prescribes a higher floor space of 3.38 sq metres per worker on a factory floor compared to other countries. An Indian factory with 1,000 square metres (sqm) of usable floor space can employ up to 82 more workers if India were to adopt Malaysia’s standard of 2.65 sq. metres per worker. The argument is that with lower workspace standard, India would be employing more workers.

The reality is that working conditions in Indian factories and stores are inhuman. Recent reports have shown the extremely oppressive conditions faced by Amazon workers during the heat wave in summer, without any ventilation or cooling in the warehouse, standing for 10 hours continuously every day. In the Foxconn assembly plant, women workers work without any break, are not given any leave and are housed in prison-like conditions without clean and healthy food,. In factories and workshops in the informal sector, conditions of work are oppressive and dangerous to the lives and well-being of workers as demonstrated by the numerous reported incidents of workers’ deaths and serious injuries from fires, explosions and other kinds of catastrophes.

Job opportunities for women

The Economic Survey claims that job opportunities for women can be increased by easing the current legal restrictions on employing women in certain activities like electroplating, manufacturing of pesticides, glass, rechargeable batteries etc.  An important consideration which is ignored is that women have a crucial role in reproduction and ensuring that they are not exposed to certain risks is a mark of a civilised society. Moreover, the real reasons for the low labour force participation and high unemployment among women in our country include the widespread discrimination and oppression they face and the lack of safety at work

Conclusion

It is indisputable that legal provisions for overtime payments, length of the working day, space per worker, and safety of women workers are violated by most of the capitalist employers in our country. They are observed only in the case of a small section of the working class, those employed by the largest public and private companies. At the same time, these provisions are important because they set a standard for which all workers can fight. The bourgeoisie wants to lower this standard. By pushing down the standard of the workers who enjoy these conditions, they want to worsen the conditions of the entire working class

The claim that lowering the legally required standards will be in the interests of the workers shows the hypocrisy of the bourgeoisie.

The claim that intensifying the exploitation of Indian workers is necessary to attract foreign investors is an anti-worker perspective that the bourgeoisie is seeking to justify in the name of “national interest”. Workers make up the largest part of the population. To worsen their conditions, depriving them of adequate rest and leisure and driving them to an early grave, all for the sake of increasing capitalist profits, is not in the national interest.  It shows that the government considers the interests of capitalists to be the national interest.

The fact that an official central government document like the Economic Survey calls for more intense exploitation of workers shows that the existing Indian state is not a representative of the whole people, as it claims. It is a state of the bourgeoisie. It considers workers only as a productive force to be exploited as intensely as possible – not as human beings who have a right to a decent life. Government policy is not oriented towards fulfilling the people’s needs. It is in the service of Indian capitalists and their competition with capitalists of other countries.

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