Labour Legislation III: The Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act 1979, the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act 1970, the Building and Other Construction Workers Act 1996 and the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986 as amended in 2016

The 1979 Act grew out of the dadan system of Odisha, under which contractors (sardars) advanced money to workers and took them to distant states, where they were paid little, housed badly and bound by debt; Odisha's own Dadan Labour Act of 1975 could not reach employers in other states. An inter-state migrant workman is a person recruited by or through a contractor in one state under an agreement for employment in an establishment in another state. The Act applies to every establishment that employs, or employed on any day of the preceding twelve months, five or more such workmen, and to every contractor who employs five or more. The principal employer must be registered and the contractor licensed, and the contractor must furnish particulars of the recruited workmen to the authorities of both states and issue each workman a passbook with his photograph recording his place and period of employment, wage rates, displacement allowance and return fare.

• Wages (s.13): not less than the minimum wage, and the same as other workmen doing the same or similar work in the establishment.
• Displacement allowance (s.14): a one-time, non-refundable payment at recruitment equal to 50 per cent of the monthly wages or ₹75, whichever is higher.
• Journey allowance (s.15): not less than the fare from the workman's residence to the place of work and back, with wages for the days of the journey.
• Other facilities (s.16): suitable residential accommodation, free medical facilities, protective clothing, and timely payment of wages; the principal employer is liable to provide them and pay wages if the contractor fails, and may recover the cost from him.

In the OSH Code the migrant is defined more widely, to include a worker who comes from another state on his own and obtains employment, not only one recruited through a contractor, within a wage ceiling the Code sets. The Code requires the employer to pay a lump-sum fare for a to-and-fro journey to the worker's native place once a year, provides for the portability of benefits (such as public distribution and construction-worker benefits) across states, and requires records of migrant workers and a helpline. The mass return of migrant workers during the Covid-19 lockdown of 2020, and the Supreme Court's directions on their food, travel and registration, showed how far the 1979 Act's narrow definition had left most migrants outside it; the e-Shram portal (2021) was a response.

Contract labour is labour employed in or in connection with the work of an establishment by or through a contractor, with or without the knowledge of the principal employer. The 1970 Act has two aims, stated in its title: to regulate the employment of contract labour and to abolish it in certain circumstances. It applies to every establishment in which twenty or more workmen are employed, or were employed on any day of the preceding twelve months, as contract labour, and to every contractor who employs twenty or more; it does not apply to establishments where work of an intermittent or casual nature is done (work done for fewer than 120 days in the preceding twelve months, or, if seasonal, fewer than 60 days). A Central Advisory Contract Labour Board and state boards advise the governments. The principal employer must register the establishment (section 7) — an unregistered establishment may not employ contract labour at all (section 9) — and every contractor must hold a licence (section 12).

Section 10 empowers the appropriate government, after consulting the board, to prohibit the employment of contract labour in any process, operation or work, having regard to whether the work is incidental to or necessary for the industry, whether it is of a perennial nature, whether it is ordinarily done through regular workmen, and whether it is sufficient to employ a considerable number of whole-time workmen. The welfare chapter requires canteens where 100 or more contract workers are employed (section 16), rest rooms where they must halt at night (section 17), drinking water, latrines, urinals and washing facilities (section 18) and first-aid (section 19); if the contractor fails to provide them, the principal employer must, and may recover the cost (section 20). The contractor pays wages in the presence of the principal employer's authorised representative, and if he fails the principal employer must pay and recover (section 21). On the effect of abolition, the Supreme Court held in Air India Statutory Corporation v. United Labour Union (1997) that contract workers were automatically absorbed by the principal employer when contract labour was prohibited, but a Constitution Bench overruled this in Steel Authority of India Ltd. v. National Union Waterfront Workers (2001): a section 10 notification does not by itself make contract workers the principal employer's employees, though where the contract is found to be a sham or camouflage the workers are in truth the principal employer's employees.

Under the OSH Code the contract labour provisions apply to establishments and contractors employing fifty or more contract workers (in place of twenty); a contractor may take a single licence, including one valid across states, instead of a licence for each establishment; and the employment of contract labour is prohibited in the core activities of an establishment, except where the activity is ordinarily done through contractors in that kind of establishment, where it does not require full-time workers for the major part of the day or for long periods, or where there is a sudden increase in the volume of work that must be completed in a specified time. The principal employer remains responsible for welfare facilities and, in default of the contractor, for wages.

Construction is the largest employer of informal non-farm labour, and its workers move from site to site and employer to employer, so no single employer can be made responsible for their welfare over a working life. The 1996 Act therefore joined regulation of the site to a welfare fund financed by a cess. It applies to every establishment that employs, or employed on any day of the preceding twelve months, ten or more building workers in any building or other construction work, but not to the construction of an individual's own residence costing not more than ₹10 lakh. Any building worker between eighteen and sixty who has been engaged in building or other construction work for at least ninety days in the preceding twelve months may register as a beneficiary with the state Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Board, which administers the fund. The boards pay immediate assistance in accidents, pensions after sixty, advances for housing, group insurance premiums, financial assistance for the education of children, medical expenses for major ailments, maternity benefit for women beneficiaries and funeral assistance. On the site, the Act provides for hours of work and overtime, drinking water, latrines and urinals, temporary accommodation, first-aid, a crèche where more than fifty women building workers are employed, a canteen where 250 or more building workers are employed, and safety committees and safety officers in larger establishments.

The companion Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Cess Act 1996 levies a cess at a rate of not less than one per cent and not more than two per cent of the cost of construction incurred by an employer; the rate notified has been one per cent. The boards have collected large sums, but registration of workers has been incomplete and a large part of the cess has lain unspent, which the Supreme Court criticised in 2018 in a case brought by the National Campaign Committee for Central Legislation on Construction Labour. Under the Codes, the site-regulation provisions of the 1996 Act have moved into the OSH Code, and the cess and the welfare boards into the Code on Social Security, which also provides for the portability of a construction worker's registration and benefits when he moves between states.

The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986, as enacted, prohibited the employment of children below fourteen in the occupations listed in Part A and the processes listed in Part B of its Schedule, and regulated their conditions of work elsewhere (limits on hours, rest intervals, no night work or overtime, a weekly holiday), with a Child Labour Technical Advisory Committee to recommend additions to the Schedule. The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act 2016, in force from 1 September 2016, changed its basis and its name to the Child and Adolescent Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986. A "child" is now a person below fourteen years (or the age specified in the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act 2009, if higher), and the employment of a child in any occupation or process is prohibited, with two exceptions: a child may help his family or a family enterprise, in non-hazardous work, after school hours or during vacations; and a child may work as an artist in the audio-visual entertainment industry, including advertisements, films, television serials and sports activities other than the circus, subject to prescribed conditions and without affecting his schooling. An "adolescent" is a person between fourteen and eighteen, who may not be employed in the hazardous occupations and processes listed in the Schedule, now narrowed to mines, inflammable substances or explosives, and the hazardous processes defined in the Factories Act.

The 2016 amendment made offences cognizable and raised penalties: employing a child, or an adolescent in hazardous work, is punishable with imprisonment of six months to two years, or a fine of ₹20,000 to ₹50,000, or both, with one to three years for a repeat offence; parents or guardians are not punished for a first offence. It created a Child and Adolescent Labour Rehabilitation Fund in each district, into which fines are credited and the appropriate government adds ₹15,000 for each child or adolescent rescued. The law rests on Article 24 (no child below fourteen in any factory, mine or hazardous employment), Article 21A and the Right to Education Act 2009, and Article 39(e) and (f). In M. C. Mehta v. State of Tamil Nadu (1996), on children in the Sivakasi match and fireworks industry, the Supreme Court directed that an offending employer pay ₹20,000 for each child into a Child Labour Rehabilitation-cum-Welfare Fund and that the state provide employment to an adult member of the child's family or contribute ₹5,000. India ratified ILO Conventions 138 (minimum age) and 182 (worst forms of child labour) in June 2017, after the amendment brought the law into line with them. The National Child Labour Project (1988) ran special schools for rescued children, and the PENCIL portal (2017) supports enforcement.