National Commission on Labour

The National Commission on Labour (NCL) was set up in 1966 to study the industrial relations situation in the country and to make recommendations for improvement. The recommendations of the National Commission on Labour which had far reaching implications on labour policy in different areas have been briefly discussed below:
 a) Strikes / Lockouts and Gheraos: The NCL categorised industries as „essential‟ and „non-essential‟ for the purpose of strikes and lockouts, and made the following recommendations: i. In essential industries / services, where a cessation of work may cause harm to the community, the economy or the security of the nation itself, the right to strike may be banned, but with the simultaneous provision of an effective alternative like arbitration or adjudication to settle disputes. ii. In non-essential industries, a maximum period of one month has to be fixed for the continuance of a strike or lockout. After the lapse of this period, the dispute has automatically to go before the Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) for arbitration.

b) Industrial Relations Commission: The NCL recommended the constitution of Industrial Relations Commission, on a permanent basis, both at the state level and the Centre. → One of the principal reasons for suggesting these commissions is the desire to eliminate the possibility of political influence disturbing or distorting industrial peace in the country.

c) Resolution of Industrial Disputes: The National Commission on labour belt that the best way of settling industrial disputes is through negotiation between the parties.

d) Recognition of Trade Union:  The National Commission on Labour felt that statutory recognition should be granted to a representative union as a sole bargaining agent. For this, the following guidelines need to be observed:
 Recognition of a representative union should be made compulsory under a Central Law in all undertakings employing 100 or more workers or where the capital invested is above a stipulated size. A trade union seeking recognition as a bargaining agent from an individual employer should have a membership of at least 30 percent of the workers in the establishment. The minimum membership should be 25 percent if the recognition is sought for an industry in a local area.

e) Strengthening of Trade Unions: The trade unions should be made strong, organizationally and financially. Multiplicity of unions and intra-union rivalries should be discouraged by:
1. Providing compulsory registration of unions;
2. Raising the minimum number required for forming a union;
3. Raising the minimum membership fee;
4. Reduction in the number of outsiders; and 5. Taking steps to build internal leadership.

f) Collective Bargaining: The Commission found that collective bargaining did not make any progress in the country because of absence of arrangements for statutory recognition of trade unions, except in some states, and greater reliance on adjudication. The Commission recommended strengthening of collective bargaining through the following measures:
1. In order to enable employees to effectively participate in the process of collective bargaining, they should be well organised and trade unions must become strong and stable.
2. To facilitate collective bargaining, there should be compulsory recognition of a union as sole representative for the purpose of bargaining with the management.

g) Grievance Procedure: The NCL recommended that statutory backing should be provided for the formulation of an effective grievance procedure, which should be simple, flexible, less cumbersome and more or less on the lines of the Model Grievance Procedure. It should be time-bound and have a limited number of steps, say, approach to the supervisor, then to the departmental head, and thereafter a reference to the grievance committee consisting of management and union representatives. A formal grievance procedure should be introduced in each unit employing 100 or more workers.  

Principles of Labour Legislation

 Principle of Protection: The principle of protection suggests enactment of labour legislation to protect those workers who are not able to protect their interests on their own and also workers, in particular industries against the hazards of industrial processes.

2. Principle of Social Justice: The principle of social justice implies establishment of equality in social relationships. It aims at removing discrimination suffered by particular groups of labour. History is replete with examples where certain groups of society or labour have been subjected to various sorts of disabilities as compared to other groups or workers in general.

3. Principle of Regulation: The principle of Regulation generally seeks to regulate the relationships between the employers and their associations, on the one hand, and workers and their organisations, on the other. As the relationships between the two groups have repercussions on the society, the laws enacted on this principle also aim at safeguarding the interests of the society against the adverse consequences of collusion or combination between them. Thus, the principle of regulation seeks to regulate the balance of power in the relationships of the two dominant groups in industrial relations.

4. Principle of Welfare:  Although the protective and social security laws have the effect of promoting labour welfare, special labour welfare or labour welfare fund laws have also been enacted, with a view to providing certain welfare amenities to the workers, and often to their family members also.
  The main purpose behind the enactment of labour laws on this principle is to ensure the provision of certain basic amenities to workers at their place of work and also, to improve the living conditions of workers and their family members.

5. Principle of Social Security:  Lord William Beveridge, the pioneer in initiating a comprehensive social security plan mentioned five giants in the patch of social progress namely, „want‟, „sickness‟, „ignorance‟, „squalor‟, and „idleness‟.
 One of the outstanding measures to mitigate the hardship is to make available social security benefits under the coverage of legislation. Social security legislation may be kept under two broad categories – social insurance legislation and social assistance legislation. In social insurance, benefits are generally made available to the insured persons, under the condition of having paid the required contributions and fulfilling certain eligibility conditions.
In social assistance also, the beneficiaries receive benefits as a matter of right, but they do not have to make any contributions. The finance is made available by the state or a source specified by the state. Social assistance benefits are generally paid to persons of insufficient means and on consideration of their minimum needs.


6. Principle of Economic Development: Labour laws have also been enacted keeping in view the need for economic and industrial development of particular countries. Improvement of physical working conditions, establishment of industrial peace, provision of machineries for settlement of industrial disputes, formation of forums of workers‟ participation in management, prohibition of unfair labour practices, restrictions on strikes and lock-outs, provision of social security benefits and welfare facilities, certification of collective agreements and regulation of hours of work have direct or indirect bearing on the pace and extent of economic development.

 7. Principle of International Obligation: This principle postulates enactment of labour laws with a view to giving effect to the provisions of resolutions, adopted by international organisations like ILO, UN and similar other bodies. In general, the countries ratifying the resolutions or agreements are under the obligation to enforce them. One of the instruments of doing so is the enactment of laws.

Labour Legislation in India

Legislation Related to Industrial Relations:

  The Trade Union Act, 1926 and The Trade Union Amendment Act, 2011
  The Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946
  The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947

ii. Legislation Pertaining to Wages:
 The Payment of Wages Act, 1936 and The Payment of Wages (Amendment) Act, 2005
 The Minimum Wages Act, 1948  The Payment of Bonus Act, 1965
 The Equal Remuneration Act, 1976

 iii. Legislation Related to Work Conditions:
  The Factories Act, 1948
 The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970
 The Shops and Establishment Act  The Dock Workers (Regulation of Employment) Act, 1948  The Plantation Labour Act, 1951  The Mines Act, 1952
 The Merchant Shipping Act, 1958
  The Building and Other Construction Workers (Regulation of Employment & Conditions of Service) Act, 1996

iv. Legislation Pertaining to Women and Children:
 The Maternity Benefit Act, 1961
  The Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act, 1986 v. Legislation Pertaining to Social Security:
 The Workmen‟s Compensation Act, 1923 and The Workmen‟s Compensation (Amendment) Act, 2000
 The Employees‟ State Insurance Act, 1948
 The Employees‟ provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952 and The Employees‟ Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions (Amendment) Act, 1996
  The Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972
 The Unorganised Workers‟ Social Security Act, 2008.

Labour Legislation

This is another important area which has a great impact on the industrial relations system. Labour legislation has been instrumental in shaping the course of industrial relations in India. Establishment of social justice has been the principle which has guided the origin and development of labour legislation in India. The setting up of the International Labour Organisation gave an impetus to the consideration of welfare and working conditions of the workers all over the world and also led to the growth of labour laws in all parts of the world, including India. Some of the other factors which gave impetus to the development of labour laws in India were the Swaraj Movement of 1921-24 and the appointment of the Royal Commission on Labour in 1929.

History of Labour Legislation in India:
 Labour legislation in India has a history of over 125 years. Beginning with the Apprentice Act, passed in 1850, to enable children brought up in orphanages to find employment when they come of age, several labour laws covering all aspects of industrial employment have been passed.

 The labour laws regulate not only the conditions of work of industrial establishments, but also industrial relations, payment of wages, registration of trade unions, certification of standing orders, etc. In addition, they provide social security measures for workers. They define legal rights and obligations of employees and employers and also provide guidelines for their relationship.

 In India, all laws emanate from the Constitution of India. Under the Constitution, labour is a concurrent subject, i.e., both the Central and State governments can enact labour legislation, with the clause that the State legislature cannot enact a law which is repugnant to the Central law. A rough estimate places the total number of enactments in India to be around 160.

The Apprentice Act of 1850 was followed by the Factories Act of 1881 and the first State act was the Bombay Trade Disputes (and Conciliation) Act, 1934, followed by the Bombay Industrial Disputes Act, 1938, which was amended during the war years. This was replaced by the BIR Act, 1946.

 The Central Government at this time introduced the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946. In 1947, the government replaced the Trade Disputes Act with the Industrial Disputes Act, which was later modified. This law is the main instrument for government intervention in industrial disputes.

 After Independence, many laws concerning social security and regulation of labour employment were enacted, such as the ESI Act, 1948, EPF and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952, Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972, Equal Remuneration Act, 1976. Etc.

Objectives: Labour Legislation in India are to
i. Protect workers from exploitation
 ii. Strengthen industrial relations;
 iii. Provide machinery for settling industrial disputes and welfare of workers.

Types of Labour Legislation in India:
 Under three broad categories, as formulated by Banerjee:
1) Protective and employment legislation
 2) Social security legislation
3) Regulatory legislation'

1. Protective and Employment Legislation: The following acts can be grouped under this category: Factories Act, Payment of Wages Act, Minimum Wages Act, Equal Remuneration Act, Payment of Bonus Act, Apprentice Act and Employment Exchange (Compulsory Notification of Vacancies) Act. Some of these are concerned with the health and safety of the worker at his workplace. Others protect the worker by ensuring that he gets paid for the work done at the end of each month.

2. Social Security Legislation: This category includes acts such as the Employees‟ State Insurance Act, 1948, Employees‟ Provident Fund Act, 1952 and the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1952. These social security measures are meant to protect workers against risks of undue hardship and privation. The ESI Act, for example, provides medical care, accident compensation and compensation to a worker when he is unemployed or ill. The Provident Fund and Gratuity Schemes are meant to provide to the worker with some income after his retirement.

3. Regulatory Legislation: The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 and the Trade Unions Act, 1926, etc. come under this category.

 The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, basically provides for the investigation and settlement of industrial disputes. Its main objective is to provide for a just settlement of disputes by negotiations, conciliation, mediation, voluntary arbitration and compulsory adjudication. The Act places constraints on strikes and lockouts. It provides for a works committee at the plant level to ensure that management and worker contribute to the efficient day to day working of the enterprise.

 The Industrial Employment (Standing Order) Act, 1946, requires management to specify the terms and conditions of employment and communicate these to the workers. The Trade Union Act, 1926, is the enabling legislation for the formation of trade unions.

Client centered approach to counselling

An Introduction to Person-Centred Counselling

Taking the view that every individual has the internal resources they need for growth, person-centred counselling aims to provide three ‘core conditions’ (unconditional positive regard, empathy and congruence) which help that growth to occur.

Underlying Theory of Person-Centred Counselling

The person-centred approach views the client as their own best authority on their own experience, and it views the client as being fully capable of fulfilling their own potential for growth. It recognizes, however, that achieving potential requires favourable conditions and that under adverse conditions, individuals may well not grow and develop in the ways that they otherwise could. In particular, when individuals are denied acceptance and positive regard from others — or when that positive regard is made conditional upon the individual behaving in particular ways — they may begin to lose touch with what their own experience means for them, and their innate tendency to grow in a direction consistent with that meaning may be stifled.

One reason this may occur is that individuals often cope with the conditional acceptance offered to them by others by gradually coming to incorporate these conditions into their own views about themselves. They may form a self-concept which includes views of themselves like, “I am the sort of person who must never be late”, or “I am the sort of person who always respects others”, or “I am the sort of person who always keeps the house clean”. Because of a fundamental need for positive regard from others, it is easier to ‘be’ this sort of person — and to receive positive regard from others as a result — than it is to ‘be’ anything else and risk losing that positive regard. Over time, their intrinsic sense of their own identity and their own evaluations of experience and attributions of value may be replaced by creations partly or even entirely due to the pressures felt from other people. That is, the individual displaces personal judgements and meanings with those of others.

Psychological disturbance occurs when the individual’s ‘self-concept’ begins to clash with immediate personal experience — i.e., when the evidence of the individual’s own senses or the individual’s own judgement clashes with what the self-concept says ‘ought’ to be the case. Unfortunately, disturbance is apt to continue as long as the individual depends on the conditionally positive judgements of others for their sense of self-worth and as long as the individual relies on a self-concept designed in part to earn those positive judgements. Experiences which challenge the self-concept are apt to be distorted or even denied altogether in order to preserve it.

Therapeutic Approach of Person-Centred Counselling

The person-centred approach maintains that three core conditions provide a climate conducive to growth and therapeutic change. They contrast starkly with those conditions believed to be responsible for psychological disturbance. The core conditions are:

1. Unconditional positive regard
2. Empathic understanding
3. Congruence

The first — unconditional positive regard — means that the counsellor accepts the client unconditionally and non-judgementally. The client is free to explore all thoughts and feelings, positive or negative, without danger of rejection or condemnation. Crucially, the client is free to explore and to express without having to do anything in particular or meet any particular standards of behaviour to ‘earn’ positive regard from the counsellor. The second — empathic understanding — means that the counsellor accurately understands the client’s thoughts, feelings, and meanings from the client’s own perspective. When the counsellor perceives what the world is like from the client’s point of view, it demonstrates not only that that view has value, but also that the client is being accepted. The third — congruence — means that the counsellor is authentic and genuine. The counsellor does not present an aloof professional facade, but is present and transparent to the client. There is no air of authority or hidden knowledge, and the client does not have to speculate about what the counsellor is ‘really like’.

Together, these three core conditions are believed to enable the client to develop and grow in their own way — to strengthen and expand their own identity and to become the person that they ‘really’ are independently of the pressures of others to act or think in particular ways.

Person-centred pioneer Carl Rogers

As a result, person-centred theory takes these core conditions as both necessaryand sufficient for therapeutic movement to occur — i.e., that if these core conditions are provided, then the client will experience therapeutic change. (Indeed, the achievement of identifying and articulating these core conditions and launching a significant programme of scientific research to test hypotheses about them was one of the greatest contributions of Carl Rogers, the American psychologist who first began formulating the person-centred approach in the 1930s and 1940s.) Notably, person-centred theory suggests that there is nothing essentially unique about the counselling relationship and that in fact healthy relationships with significant others may well manifest the core conditions and thus be therapeutic, although normally in a transitory sort of way, rather than consistently and continually.

Finally, as noted at the outset, the person-centred approach takes clients as their own best authorities. The focus of person-centred therapy is always on the client’s own feelings and thoughts, not on those of the therapist — and certainly not on diagnosis or categorization. The person-centred therapist makes every attempt to foster an environment in which clients can encounter themselves and become more intimate with their own thoughts, feelings and meanings.

Causes and effects of improper waste management.

CAUSES

Contributing causes of improper waste management are:

Ignorance: Ignorance of people about proper waste disposal. People are unaware of consequence of their unwise acts.

Laziness: Can cause improper garbage disposal because People not following the correct rules of proper waste disposal their always throw it what place they want and they have no care what will be the effect of it.

Greed: Can cause improper garbage disposal for example burning of tires of wheel and plastic instead of keeping it or trade the excess automobile car tires to maximize on it.

Overview

Tossing everyday items into the trash can seem like second nature to many people. If you are implementing recycling techniques into your lifestyle, you are taking a positive step toward helping the environment. Learner.org notes that in the U.S. alone, over 230 million tons of trash is produced each year. Less than 25 percent of that waste is recycled and the rest ends up in landfills, incinerated or in ditches and roadsides. Improper garbage disposal isn’t just an eyesore; it poses a serious threat to nature.

Soil Contamination

It is important to learn the basics of recycling so that the waste that does end up in landfills can be disposed of properly. Plastics, metals, papers and certain types of glass can all be recycled at your local recycling center. If you take the time to send these items to recyclable locations, the items can be reused and returned to consumers. They won’t end up as trash or hurting the environment. If recyclables are placed into the ground they can potentially contaminate the surrounding soil. The Western Courier shares with readers that as plastic water bottles break down they can release DEHA, a type of carcinogen that can cause reproductive problems, liver issues and weight loss. This type of chemical can leach into the soil and cause contamination that can reach plant and animal life as well as water sources. Newspapers or paper that contains ink can be toxic to the soil as well. If the garbage is dumped or not contained properly in a landfill it will contaminate the surrounding ground.

Air Contamination

When disposing of garbage that contains harmful chemicals such as bleach, acid or oil it is important that it is disposed of in approved containers and labeled correctly. Paper, plastics and other materials that are burned can contaminate the air when they are burned. Over time the chemicals can build up in the ozone layer. If they contain toxic chemicals like dioxin they can reach the air that people breathe and cause a public health risk. Garbage that is disposed of improperly can also begin to release methane gases. According to the Energy Information Administration, these gases are greenhouse gasses that can destroy the earth’s ozone layer and contribute to significant climate changes or global warming.

Animals and Marine Life

Humans are not the only ones affected by improper garbage disposal—animals are too. Conservation International notes that garbage dumping and discharging raw or untreated sewage can threaten marine life and animals who come in contact with the water. When waste forms a cluster or algal bloom, the area can suffocate and contaminate sea bottom habitats such as coral and fish reducing their numbers. This contamination not only destroys their habitat it can also affect human consumption as fish and shellfish that were feasting off of contaminated areas reach fishermen and are caught for human consumption. Old fishing lures, plastic bottles, rope, Styrofoam, cigarette butts and fishing lines can be consumed by marine animals leading to the death of millions each year according to Conservation International.

Role of social worker in protection and preservation of environment .

v  Creating awareness among the public on current environmental issues and solutions.
v  Facilitating the participation of various categories of stakeholders in the discussion on environmental issues.
v  Conducting participatory rural appraisal.
v  Being involved in the protection of human rights to have a clean environment.
v  Protecting the natural resources and entrusting the equitable use of resources.
v  Data generation on natural resources, time line history of villages.
v  Analysis and monitoring of environmental quality.
v  Transferring information through newsletters, brochures, articles, audio visuals, etc.
v  Organizing seminars, lectures and group discussion for promotion of environmental awareness.
v  Helping the villages’ administrative officials in preparation, application and execution of projects on environmental protection.