Karnataka State IT/ITeS Staff’ Union (KITU) has urged the Siddaramaiah-led authorities to rethink its reported plans to increase the working hours of the IT/ITeS/BPO sector.
Based on the union, the federal government plans to extend the working hours to 14 hours a day.
The proposal to amend the Karnataka Retailers and Industrial Institution Act on this regard, was introduced in a latest assembly known as by the labour division with numerous stakeholders within the business, it mentioned in a launch.
Labour Minister Santosh Lad, officers from the Division of Labour and IT-BT Ministry attended the assembly, by which the representatives of the union took half.
The union strongly opposed the proposed modification which, it mentioned, poses an “assault on the essential proper of any employee to have a private life.” The labour minister agreed to have yet another spherical of dialogue earlier than taking any choice, it added.
Noting that the proposed new invoice ‘Karnataka Retailers and Industrial Institutions (Modification) Invoice 2024’ makes an attempt to normalise a 14-hour work day, the union mentioned, the prevailing act solely permits a most of 10 hours work per day, together with extra time.
This modification will enable the businesses to go for a two shift system as a substitute of the presently present three shift system, and one third of the workforce might be thrown out of their employment, it claimed.
Noting that through the assembly KITU identified the research on the well being influence of prolonged working hours among the many IT workers, it mentioned, “the Karnataka authorities of their starvation, to please their company bosses, utterly neglects probably the most elementary proper of any particular person, the appropriate to reside.”
This modification reveals that the Authorities of Karnataka just isn’t prepared to think about the employees as human beings who want private and social life to outlive. As a substitute, it considers them as solely a equipment to extend the revenue of the corporates to whom it serves, it added.
The union additional identified that this modification comes at a interval when the world begins to simply accept the truth that elevated working hours are negatively impacting productiveness and extra international locations are coming with new legislations to simply accept the “proper to disconnect” as a primary proper of any worker.
The union urged the federal government to rethink and warned that any try to go along with the modification might be an open problem to the 20 lakh workers working within the IT/ITeS sector in Karnataka, it mentioned.
“KITU calls upon all of the IT/ITeS sector workers to unify and are available ahead to withstand this inhuman try to impose slavery on us,” it mentioned.