New Delhi, May 1 (PTI) The new labour codes are an assault on the rights of the workers, and the Joint Platform for Trade Unions will continue to protest against them, CITU general secretary Tapan Sen said on Thursday.

As Labour Day was observed on Thursday, the leader of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) expressed concern that several states were incorporating the new codes into their laws.

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He said the Centre of Indian Trade Union (CITU), a central trade union affiliated with the CPI(M), has called for a strike on May 20 to protest the labour codes and other issues. He asserted that this would be the beginning of a new resistance to the new codes.

“We could stall the implementation of the new labour codes for the last five years, there were numerous strikes, general strikes, sectoral action, and they could not notify the code. Now, they are processing it with different state governments, and they had planned to notify them on the 1st of April. Somehow, they could not notify it,” Sen told PTI.

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The four labour codes passed by Parliament replace 29 existing labour laws. These codes regulate wages, industrial relations, social security, occupational safety, health and working conditions.

Sen said numerous mechanisms have been designed by the government to surpass labour laws.

"They are making numerous administrative mechanisms, by which they are curbing even the rights which are available to the worker. They are incentivising the employers to violate the laws by way of decriminalising those offences. They will pay some fine and get out of this,” he said.

He said representatives of the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) met with trade unions on April 29 to discuss a proposal to reduce the penalty charges applicable to defaulters of employee provident fund contributions.

“The defaulters are being promoted this way... All the trade unions have opposed it, saying it is legalising the violation of the law. They are decriminalising the offences and reducing the penalty, thereby legalising or legitimising the violations. So, in that kind of situation, the workers have no other right,” he said.

"The struggle was unleashed throughout the globe, and for defined working hours, sacrifices were made. Ultimately, the eight-hour workday was internationally recognised. So, when those rights are being thought to be taken away, the workers' strategy is to defy that, resist that process, and assert those rights,” he said.

He also alleged that laws are being misused to target those involved in protests and agitations against the union government.

“The collective rights of workers are being sought to be curtailed. Now, collective agitation is being charged as organised crime under the Bharatiya Naya Samhita section 111, and leaders have been put in jail,” he said.

According to CPI(M) leaders, two trade union leaders in Uttar Pradesh and one in Jammu and Kashmir were arrested under this section.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)