By: Mridul Anand

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EVALUATING THE CONCERNS ABOUT THE GOVERNMENT EMPLOYMENT CONTRACTS THROUGH THE HUGH COLLINS’ THEORY

The government employs individuals in two ways. First, as a government servant as per the rules framed under Article 309 of the Constitution or based on a contract. However, the employees employed under contract are not covered under Article 309. Nonetheless, most of the government employment rules are imbued with a degree of ambiguity and vagueness for other government employees. In this regard, while emphasising on the significance of labour laws, Hugh Collins states that terms of the employment contract are deliberately left vague in order to enable the employer to alter the specific aspects of work whenever required.  Thereby, by infusing ambiguity in the drafts of employment contracts, it becomes easy for the employer to seek subordination from the employee which in the present case are the government and the government servant respectively.

Consequently, it is necessary to ensure that departmental rules provide the fundamental labour laws to the government employees to bridge the void. This condition is even more challenging for those employed on contractual basis in government departments. These employees do not enjoy the official status of a government servant, rendering them ineligible for the ‘privileges’ provided in the Constitution. Moreover, they are also excluded from certain labour laws like other government employees. For instance, the Minimum Wages Act, 1948 is not applicable to people employed in any central government undertaking.

RECOMMENDATIONS: DRAWING SOLUTION FROM THE CREATOR OF THE PROBLEM

As mentioned in Part I, most of the principles have been derived from the laws of England. However, most of the provisions of their Employment Rights Act – which is a statute that deals with the wages, unfair dismissal, and redundancy payments of employees – are now applicable to the Crown servants. Moreover, the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidation) Act, 1992 has a separate provision (Article 273) for the special applicability of the provisions of the statute on Crown servants. Hence, if the jurisdiction from where the idea has been drawn has moved forward, India should also reconsider it.

Accordingly, it is recommended that a similar policy be adopted in India where the fundamental labour laws should include special provisions for the applicability of such laws to government employees. This might entail special modifications required to be made for government servants under the labour statutes. This would ensure that the void is filled and the rights of government employees are not kept vague. Hence, it is important to provide certain basic rights to the government employees, which should not be left for the departmental rules to decide.

CONCLUSION

There is no doubt about the fact that government employees enjoy special privileges, including those provided in the Constitution, which is not provided to any other person involved in the labour force. However, the same cannot be used as a rationale for denying fundamental labour rights to the government employees as has been done by the Court in the recent cases and the previous judgements. In fact, the same goes against certain constitutional provisions.

Therefore, it is important to strike a balance between the privileges of the government employees and fairness, where the basic rights of the government employees are not left to the discretion of departmental rules.

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(Mridul Anand is a law undergraduate at West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences. The author may be contact via mail at mridul221126@nujs.edu)

Cite as: Mridul Anand, The Erosion of the Labour Rights of Government Employees in the Name of Constitutional Protections (Part 2), 9th July 2024<https://rmlnlulawreview.com/2024/07/09/the-erosion-of-the-labour-rights-of-government-employees-in-the-name-of-constitutional-protections-part-2/>date of access.