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RS passes the Trade Unions (Amendment) Bill

The Rajya Sabha on Thursday passed a bill to further amend the Trade Unions Act 1926 to reduce multiplicity of trade unions, promote internal democracy and orderly growth, and regulation of the unions.

The Trade Unions (Amendment) Bill, 2000, was passed after rejecting Opposition amendments.

Minister of State for Labour Satya Narain Jatiya assured the House that the Bill was not aimed at hurting the interests of the workers.

Referring to the members' demand that there should be secret ballot for recognition of trade unions, the minister said the government was also interested to have this but so far no consensus had been reached on this.

When an opposition member regretted that the government had not made any provision in the Bill to protect the interest of a large number of landless agricultural workers and those employed in the unorganised sector, the minister said the government was not ignoring these workers.

He said for providing social security cover to these workers, the government had already started a special scheme from July 1.

Under the scheme, he said, the agricultural worker would pay Re 1 per month and the government would pay Rs 2 per month for providing a comprehensive insurance cover to the workers.

The scheme, he said, had been started in 50 districts initially and would be extended all over the country later.

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