Employmentweb_low

EmploymEnT, woRk, and hEalTh inEqualiTiEs - a global perspective
form of pension and health benefits has been mostly for workers in
the formal sector. for the rest of the workforce, the approach to
social protection has relied mostly on promotional measures, such
as the special programmes to encourage employment (selfemployment
as well as wage employment) among the very poor;
rudimentary health-care services and education; and a system for
distributing subsidised food to the public. only about 0.4 per cent of
the unorganised sector workers were receiving social security
benefits like provident fund, and this proportion had not changed
since 1999-2000. Despite successive attempts to address the
problems faced by workers in the unorganised sector through
legislative as well as programme-oriented measures, there has not
been any significant success. This is partly due to the ignorance,
illiteracy and lack of unionisation of workers, and partly due to the
resource constraints of the state (national Commission for
Enterprises in the unorganized sector [nCEus], 2007).
However, the enactment of the national rural Employment
guarantee act of 2005 marks a significant step towards recognising
and ensuring work as a right of the people. This act provides at least
one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment every year to
every household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled
manual work. It is considered the greatest initiative ever attempted in
India, not only for its aggressive approach towards poverty alleviation,
but also for its attempt to empower those living at the margins. This
state intervention aimed at assuring employment to the rural poor is
also significant in its attempt to situate employment at the centre of
macroeconomic policy, rather than as a hoped-for outcome of the
growth process. This ambitious rural employment guarantee
programme is currently in operation in 200 districts of India and has
expanded to all districts sine april 2008. The Indian government has
also recently introduced a bill in the parliament to provide minimum
social security coverage to the unorganised sector workers, such as
health insurance, old age pension and maternity benefits.
The Constitution of India has a number of acts, rules and regulations
for ensuring occupational safety and health for workers. unfortunately,
these occupational safety and health laws are applicable in a fragmented
manner and have been developed in a piecemeal fashion, resulting in
duplication in some areas and gaps in others. There is no single, unified
legislation which can address even the basic responsibilities for
occupational safety and health in all the sectors. Even though the vast
majority of India's workforce is in the unorganised sectors, no authentic
statistics at the national level are available on accidents and occupational
diseases, with the exception of a few pilot surveys.
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