New Delhi: Congress General Secretary Jairam Ramesh on Saturday strongly criticized the newly implemented labor codes. He said they merely reinvent 29 existing laws and do not meet workers’ basic demands, such as a national minimum wage of ₹400 per day and an employment guarantee for urban areas.
He also pointed out that these codes lack fully notified rules, preventing their full implementation, despite being hailed as a major reform. India’s labor framework witnessed its biggest change since independence on November 21st when the government implemented four labor codes.
These codes, covering wages, industrial relations, social security, and occupational safety and health, replace 29 old laws to create a consolidated legislative structure aimed at modernizing labor regulation. Although the government claims the new framework simplifies compliance and improves business, trade unions are raising concerns about the potential weakening of worker safety.
In a post on X, Ramesh said, “29 existing wage laws have been repackaged into four codes. This is being presented as a revolutionary reform, even though the rules haven’t even been notified yet. But will these codes realize these five essential demands for labor justice from India’s workers?”
Ramesh cited the Congress Party’s Shramik Nyay Platform, which outlines five guarantees for workers’ justice. He emphasized that the new codes fail to fulfill these commitments. He also highlighted the gig worker welfare laws implemented in Congress-ruled Karnataka in 2025 and the earlier framework introduced in Rajasthan in 2023, citing these as examples of more forward-thinking, worker-centric reforms that the central government has ignored.
He further said, ‘The Modi government should learn from the examples of the Congress government in Karnataka and the previous government in Rajasthan, which introduced labour reforms for the 21st century with their robust gig worker laws before the new code.
