December 6, 2024
Saket Gokhale’s Zero Hour mention on the need to improve well-being of employees in the pvt sector: Toxic work culture; pvt sector reform; labour law regulation; MGNREGS workers in Bengal not paid – deprivation of people
Mr. Deputy Chairman, Sir, the issue that I wish to bring to the notice of this House is very important. On 20th of July this year, a young 26-year-old woman, named, Anna Sebastian, suddenly died. She was found dead. Her mother then wrote an open letter on social media where the mother said that her daughter had died because she was made to overwork in the company where she was working. The company happens to be one of the big four consulting companies; it is a multinational company. Similarly, before that, in February, Satish Nandgaonkar, a journalist working with a very major Indian newspaper in Mumbai, suffered a cardiac arrest. At that time also, his family, even the Press Council, said that this happened because, at work, the boss allegedly was very toxic, who kept berating him and also insulting him. So, after these two shocking incidents, there has been a groundswell of complaints also on social media from people in the private sector saying that presently, at many places, there is a toxic work culture, a work culture where employees are made to work for long hours and are subjected to insults. A lot of this is happening in private companies today. Sir, for me also, this issue is very important because we are talking about private companies. Why it is important for my State is because Bengal means business. Today, this is a priority for me because we have more than 1.45 lakh active companies in our State. Today, the IT sector in West Bengal employs more than 2.6 lakh employees. So, the issue of reforms in private sector is very important. Sir, there is a reason as to why I wish to draw the attention of the House to this particular issue. This year, Government revenue from corporate tax was less than the Government revenue from income tax. Who are paying income tax? It is the people working in private companies. I will just give some examples in which they are subjected to a very toxic atmosphere. There is no overtime pay provision in the contracts in India. People are made to work 8 hours, 10 hours and even 12 hours. There is no provision for overtime unlike other countries. A lot of employees, who work in client-facing companies, are subject to whims of their clients, who call them on weekends, etc. So, there is a need that our labour laws regulate this. We do not have legislation right now to regulate it. What happens at times is that employees lose their jobs and unemployment happens. Today, the condition is so bad that people who have worked in my State of West Bengal have not been given their MNREGA dues. The total pending dues amount to Rs. 8,377 crores. These are the people who have worked. When people lose their jobs, they get this sort of deprivation… That is why I am saying that this toxic work culture and deprivation of people is something which the Government and this House needs to take seriously. People who are employed need a healthy work atmosphere and people who have worked need to be paid, be it the private sector or be it the MNREGA workers in West Bengal. Thank you very much.
