Labour Legislation II: The Factories Act 1948 and the Mines Act 1952 — Health, Safety, Hazardous Processes, Welfare, Working Hours, Young Persons, Women and Leave — and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020

The Factories Act 1948, in force from 1 April 1949, regulates the health, safety, welfare, hours and leave of workers in factories. A "factory" (section 2(m)) is any premises where ten or more workers are working, or were working on any day of the preceding twelve months, in a part of which a manufacturing process is carried on with the aid of power, or twenty or more workers where it is carried on without power; mines, mobile units of the armed forces, railway running sheds and hotels, restaurants and eating places are excluded. A "worker" is a person employed, directly or through an agency including a contractor, with or without the principal employer's knowledge, in a manufacturing process or in cleaning or other work incidental to it. The "occupier" is the person who has ultimate control over the affairs of the factory; for a company it must be one of the directors, as the Supreme Court upheld in J. K. Industries v. Chief Inspector of Factories (1996). The Act is enforced by state governments through a Chief Inspector of Factories and inspectors, with certifying surgeons for medical examinations; factories must be approved, licensed and registered before work begins.

Chapter III (sections 11 to 20) on health requires cleanliness (with walls whitewashed or painted at prescribed intervals), disposal of wastes and effluents, adequate ventilation and temperature, control of dust and fumes, standards for artificial humidification, freedom from overcrowding (at least 14.2 cubic metres of space for every worker in a factory built after the Act, and 9.9 cubic metres in older ones, ignoring space more than 4.2 metres above the floor), sufficient and suitable lighting, wholesome drinking water (cooled in hot weather where more than 250 workers are employed), latrines and urinals, and spittoons. Chapter IV (sections 21 to 41) on safety requires the fencing of dangerous machinery, rules for work on or near machinery in motion (only by specially trained adult male workers), a bar on young persons at dangerous machines without training and supervision, striking gear to cut off power, the casing of new machinery, the examination of hoists, lifts, lifting machines and pressure plant, safe floors, stairs and means of access, protection of eyes, precautions against dangerous fumes and explosive dust, fire precautions, and a safety officer in factories employing 1,000 or more workers (section 40B).

Chapter IVA (sections 41A to 41H) on hazardous processes was inserted by the Factories (Amendment) Act 1987, after the Bhopal gas disaster of December 1984, in which methyl isocyanate leaked from the Union Carbide pesticide plant. It provides for site appraisal committees before a factory with a hazardous process is sited; compulsory disclosure by the occupier of the hazards and of the measures to deal with them, to workers, the Chief Inspector and the local authority; the occupier's specific responsibility for health records, medical examination and competent supervision; emergency standards and permissible limits of exposure to chemicals and toxic substances (the Second Schedule); a safety committee with equal numbers of workers' and management representatives (section 41G); and the right of workers to warn the occupier of imminent danger (section 41H). Section 7A sets the general duty of every occupier to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of all workers, and section 89 requires notice of the occupational diseases listed in the Third Schedule.

Chapter VI limits the hours of adult workers to 48 in a week (section 51) and 9 in a day (section 54), with a weekly holiday, normally Sunday (section 52), and compensatory holidays if it is lost (section 53). No worker may work more than five hours without a rest interval of at least half an hour (section 55), and the spread-over, including intervals, may not exceed ten and a half hours in a day (section 56). Overtime is paid at twice the ordinary rate of wages (section 59), shifts may not overlap (section 58), and a worker may not work in two factories on the same day (section 60). Women may not be employed except between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m., a limit the state government may vary within 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. (section 66); several states have since permitted night work for women with safeguards. Chapter VII prohibits the employment of children below fourteen (section 67); a child of fourteen who has not completed fifteen, and an adolescent of fifteen to eighteen, may work only with a certificate of fitness from the certifying surgeon, and a child may work no more than four and a half hours a day and not at night (section 71). Chapter VIII gives annual leave with wages to a worker who has worked 240 days or more in a calendar year, at one day for every 20 days worked for an adult and one for every 15 days for a child (section 79).

Mining is a Union subject (entry 55 of the Union List), so the Mines Act 1952 is administered by the Central Government through the Directorate General of Mines Safety at Dhanbad, which began in 1902 as the Bureau of Mines Inspection; its head is the Chief Inspector of Mines, with inspectors and certifying surgeons. The Act applies to every mine, whatever the number of persons employed; a "mine" is any excavation where any operation for searching for or obtaining minerals is carried on, including borings, shafts, inclines and the plant, workshops and conveyance associated with it. It requires managers and competent persons, drinking water, conservancy, first-aid and medical appliances, notice of accidents and dangerous occurrences, and inquiries into accidents; the Chasnala colliery disaster of December 1975, in which some 375 miners drowned, is the worst in Indian history. Hours are limited to 48 a week, and to 9 a day above ground and 8 a day below ground, with a weekly day of rest, a rest interval after five hours above ground, and overtime at twice the ordinary rate. No person below eighteen may work in any part of a mine, apart from apprentices and trainees of at least sixteen under proper supervision (section 40). No woman may be employed below ground, and above ground only between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. (section 46); a notification of 2019 permitted women above ground at night and below ground by day in technical, supervisory and managerial work, with their consent and prescribed safeguards. Annual leave with wages is one day for every fifteen days worked below ground and one for every twenty days above ground.

The OSH Code consolidates thirteen Acts, the Factories Act and the Mines Act among them, and applies a common framework to establishments, with chapters for factories, mines, plantations, construction, beedi, motor transport, dock, cine and journalist workers, and contract and inter-state migrant labour. It raises the definition of a factory to premises with 20 or more workers where power is used and 40 or more where it is not; replaces the separate registrations under many Acts with a single registration for an establishment with ten or more workers, and a single licence where licences are needed; sets up a National Occupational Safety and Health Advisory Board and state boards; limits daily working hours to eight, with weekly hours and spread-over as the government prescribes, and overtime at twice the rate with the worker's consent; allows women to be employed in all establishments for all types of work, and at night between 7 p.m. and 6 a.m. with their consent and the safeguards prescribed; grants annual leave with wages to a worker who has worked 180 days or more in a calendar year (in place of 240), at one day for every twenty days; provides for an annual health examination of workers of a prescribed age; and requires a letter of appointment to every employee. Mines remain under central administration, and the mine-specific rules on underground work, young persons and women continue within the Code.