Category Archives: Abolition Of Work

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Equality in Democracy: Tocqueville's Prediction of a Falling America CNSNews.com This very real problem, however, has distracted attention from Tocqueville's interest in the deeper dynamic at work. This concerns how ... The horizons of Christian conceptions of justice also shrink to the abolition of difference. The truth that many ...

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Equality in Democracy: Tocqueville's Prediction of a Falling America - CNSNews.com

There is a new taboo in the workplace: retirement. Age discrimination legislation and the abolition of the default retirement age means that companies are worried about talking to older workers about retiring, for fear of being accused of ageism. As ongoing research Im involved in has begun to show, this is helping nobody.

Governments in many countries are encouraging us to work for longer as we live longer, largely to rescue failing pension systems by continuing to pay tax and possibly save more for our retirement. In the UK, recent policy changes have had an impact on how companies and their employees regard retirement. Age discrimination legislation made direct or indirect discrimination on the basis of age illegal in 2006 and this was followed by further legislation in 2011 which got rid of the default retirement age which had been set at 65. This made it illegal to force someone to retire at a particular age.

The change was justified on the grounds that it gave people more choice and more scope to continue working if they wanted to. But as the age at which you can get your state pension is also rising to 66 from December 2018, with a further rise to 67 by 2028 for the lower paid, it may be less a choice and more a necessity to carry on working.

So you might expect that workplaces across the UK are full of people having conversations about their retirement. However, as part of a project, Uncertain Futures: Managing Late Career Transitions and Extended Working Life, my colleagues and I have undertaken work in five organisations in different sectors that suggests a very different picture. No-one is talking to their employees about retirement for misguided fear of acting in a discriminating way.

As a human resources manager in local government told us:

We used to sort of institute discussions between the line manager and the individual sort of six to 12 months before they turned 65 to say, What are your intentions? As soon as that default retirement age was taken away we just left it to run its cause.

An idea that no one should mention retirement is taking hold. One employee in a large multinational manufacturing company told us:

I know theyre not allowed to come and discuss retirement and everything with me, or what my plans are, but no ones even come and said now youre 65, what do you want to do or is there something we can do for you?

From the employers point of view, people need to come forward to resign. Another employee from the same company told us: Its now seen from the companys point of view that we dont actually retire, we leave.

In the organisations we have been studying, this reluctance to talk about retirement is causing problems on a number of different levels. From the management point of view, it makes human resource planning difficult. In a transport company we talked to, key skilled employees that keep the operation moving only have to give one months notice, but training up replacements can take a minimum of 18 months. The staff group is ageing, have good pensions and if large numbers decided to leave in a short space of time there would be severe skill shortages. A similar prospect was faced in a mineral extraction and processing company with an ageing workforce and considerable problems attracting younger workers into the industry.

The employees weve spoken to did want to talk about their retirement options but were not clear how to go about it. Nor did not see it as their role to initiate the conversation. Many people were interested in the idea of gradual retirement but relatively few believed that it would be available to them it was cast as a rare option only available for certain roles.

Following the abolition of the mandatory retirement age, one of the companies we spoke to had actually phased out an option that used to be available for a flexible reduction in hours up to retirement. But people needed guidance about various aspects of what they very much still saw as their retirement rather than their resignation.

There will be good line managers out there who know their staff and talk to them about their aspirations and intentions but it certainly was not the norm in the cases we looked at. The message appears to be begin the retirement conversation earlier perhaps via a line manager as a part of an established staff review process. In order to make sure this happens smoothly, line managers need formal training in how to go about this.

While employees should not feel that they are being coerced, there are clear benefits for the employee and employer in planning for and managing the retirement process. Fear of being accused of ageism should not be an obstacle to the sensitive and appropriate discussion of retirement plans with older workers.

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The question employers are wary to ask: when are you going to retire? - The Conversation UK

The Abolition of Work is an essay written by Bob Black in 1985. It was part of Blacks first book, an anthology of essays entitled The Abolition of Work and Other Essays published by Loompanics Unlimited. It is an exposition of Blacks type 3 anarchism a blend of post-Situationist theory and individualist anarchism focusing on a critique of the work ethic.

Although The Abolition of Work has most often been reprinted by anarchist publishers and Black is well known as an anarchist, the essays argument is not explicitly anarchist. Black argues that the abolition of work is as important as the abolition of the state.

The essay, which is based on a 1981 speech at the Gorilla Grotto in San Francisco, is informal and without academic references, but Blacks mentions some sources such as the utopian socialist Charles Fourier, the unconventional Marxists Paul Lafargue and William Morris, anarchists such as Peter Kropotkin and Paul Goodman, and anthropologists such as Marshall Sahlins and Richard Borshay Lee.

Please come to discuss this great text!

http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/bob-black-the-abolition-of-work

Friday, March 28th, 6:00 pm

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The Abolition of Work | The Base

Slavery refers to a condition in which individuals are owned by others, who control where they live and at what they work. Slavery had previously existed throughout history, in many times and most places. The ancient Greeks, the Romans, Incas and Aztecs all had slaves.

Whatdoes it mean to be aslave or enslaved person?

To be a slave is to be owned by another person. A slave is a human being classed as property and who is forced to work for nothing. An enslaved person is a human being who is made to be a slave. This language is often used instead of the word slave, to refer to the person and their experiences and to avoid the use of dehumanising language.

What doesit mean to be a Chattel Slave?

A chattel slave is an enslaved person who is owned for ever and whose children and children's children are automatically enslaved. Chattel slaves are individuals treated as complete property, to be bought and sold.

Chattel slavery was supported and made legal by European governments and monarchs. This type of enslavement was practised in European colonies, from the sixteenth century onwards.

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What is Slavery?: The Abolition of Slavery Project

What was the Pro-Slavery or West India Lobby?

In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the production of sugar in Britain's West Indian colonies saw money pouring into Britain. The sugar production came to be controlled by a small circle of wealthy planters and merchants.

By the 1670's, London had became the centre of colonial decision-making and the West Indian planters, living in England, formed an association with the London merchants and agents responsible for colonial legislation. By 1733, the West India Lobby had grown to included associations from all the principle trade cities (Bristol, Liverpool, Glasgow, and London). Together, theynurtured ties with members of both houses of Parliament and eventually a number became MPs.

Once the planters became part of the government, they had the opportunity to influence policies that affected the colonies. The rise ofthe sugar industryalso saw therise of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and, with it, attempts by individuals to create a similar influence on the governmental economic policy, in line with slave trader interests.

Those involved in the industry eventually controlled a considerable proportion of Britain's wealth. The money from the plantations also generated commerce and shaped the British economy, as new banks and financial institutions developed. The planters and merchants invested in industry and the profits they made allowed them to build stately homes in the countryside and have enough wealth to acquire immense political power.

Many absentee' plantation owners and merchants involved in the Slave Trade, rose to high office as mayors or served in Parliament.William Beckford, for example, the owner of a 22,000 acre estate in Jamaica, was twice Lord Mayor of London and, in the mid to late 1700's, over 50 MPs in parliament represented the slave plantations.

For 200 years, supporters of the Slave Trade were successful in opposing any opposition. The lobby won major concessions from the British government and proved tough opposition to the abolitionists.

What tactics did they use?

The West India Lobbyused very similar tactics to the anti-slavery lobby (see Campaign Section). They wrote pamphlets and other literature arguing that the Slave Trade was necessary and, in fact, beneficial to the Africans. They lobbied parliament and produced witnesses to testify to parliament. They had the power and wealth to buy votes and exert pressure on others.

They also used delaying tactics, for example, suggesting the need for further time or investigation, before consideration of the issue by the House, or supporting compromise solutions. On April 2nd 1792, when Wilberforce again brought a bill calling for abolition, Henry Dundas, as home secretary, proposed a compromise solution of gradual abolition' over a number of years. Although this was passed by 230to 85 votes, the compromise was seen as little more than a clever ploy by the pro-slavery lobby. Gradual, in their view, meant never.

Another response to attacks by the anti slavery lobby was to show themselves as reformers, by revising slave codes and offering improvements to conditions. In 1823, for example, pressure for total abolition saw the Government outline a reform programme, drawn up in close consultation with the committee of West Indian Planters and Merchants, known as the amelioration programme'. The committee was chaired by an influential absentee plantation owner, Charles Ellis.

The programme involved revising the laws which regulated the number of hoursenslaved peoplecould work and the food they were provided with. It gaveenslaved peoplebasic legal rights, including the right to own property, and also provided for religious instruction. The idea was for a legally-regulated abolition of slave status, over an unspecified time period. Although the programme led to some improvements in conditions, by the early 1830's, many had still not implemented these changes.

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The Pro-Slavery Lobby: The Abolition of Slavery Project

The prison abolition movement is a movement that seeks to reduce or eliminate prisons and the prison system, and replace them with more humane and effective systems.

It is distinct from prison reform, which is the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons; however, relying on prisons less could improve their conditions by reducing overcrowding.[1]:3

Some organizations such as the Anarchist Black Cross seek total abolishment of the prison system, not intending to replace it with other government-controlled systems. Many anarchist organizations believe that the best form of justice arises naturally out of social contracts. However, many supporters for prison abolition intend to replace it with other systems, reducing prisons to a smaller role in society.

Prominent social activist Angela Davis, outspoken critic of the prison-industrial complex, openly supports prison abolition.[2] "Mass incarceration is not a solution to unemployment, nor is it a solution to the vast array of social problems that are hidden away in a rapidly growing network of prisons and jails. However, the great majority of people have been tricked into believing in the efficacy of imprisonment, even though the historical record clearly demonstrates that prisons do not work."[3] Her relevancy in this movement is attested by her close involvement with groups moving to abolish the PIC.[4]

Critical Resistance, co-founded by Angela Davis and Ruth Wilson Gilmore, is an American organization working towards an "international movement to end the Prison Industrial Complex by challenging the belief that caging and controlling people makes us safe."[5] Other similarly motivated groups such as the Prison Activist Resource Center (PARC), a group "committed to exposing and challenging all forms of institutionalized racism, sexism, able-ism, heterosexism, and classism, specifically within the Prison Industrial Complex," [6] and Black & Pink, an abolitionist organization that focuses around LGBTQ rights, all broadly advocate for prison abolition.[7] Furthermore, names such as the Human Rights Coalition, a 2001 group that aims to abolish prisons,[8][9] and the California Coalition for Women Prisoners, a grassroots organization dedicated to dismantling the PIC,[10] can all be added to the long list of organizations that desire a different justice system for our world.[11]

Every other year after Ruth Morris organized the first one in Toronto in 1983,[12] The International Conference on Penal Abolition (ICOPA) gathers activists, academics, journalists, and "others from across the world who are working towards the abolition of imprisonment, the penal system, carceral controls and and the prison industrial complex (PIC),"[13] to discuss three important questions surrounding the reality of prison abolition ICOPA was one of the first penal abolitionist conference movements, similar to Critical Resistance in America, but "with an explicitly international scope and agenda-setting ambition."[14]

Anarchists wish to eliminate all forms of state control, of which imprisonment is seen as one of the more obvious examples. Anarchists also oppose prisons because the vast majority of inmates are non-violent offenders. Numbers show incarceration rates affect mainly poor people and ethnic minorities, and do not generally rehabilitate criminals, in many cases making them worse.[15] As a result, the prison abolition movement often is associated with humanistic socialism, anarchism and anti-authoritarianism.

In October 2015, members at a plenary session of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) released and adopted a resolution in favor of prison abolition.[16][17]

Proposals for prison reform and proposed alternatives to prisons differ significantly depending on the political beliefs behind them. Proposals and tactics often include:

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime published a series of handbooks on criminal justice. Among them is Alternatives to Imprisonment which identifies how the overuse of imprisonment impacts fundamental human rights, especially those convicted for lesser crimes.

Social justice and advocacy organizations such as Students Against Mass Incarceration (SAMI) at the University of California, San Diego often look to Scandinavian countries Sweden and Norway for guidance in regards to successful prison reform because both countries have an emphasis on rehabilitation rather than punishment.[18] According to Sweden's Prison and Probation Service Director-General, Nils berg, this emphasis is made popular among the Swedish because the act of imprisonment is considered punishment enough.[19] This focus on rehabilitation includes an emphasis on promoting normalcy for inmates, a charge lead by experienced criminologists and psychologists.[20] In Norway a focus on preparation for societal re-entry has yielded "one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world at 20%, [while] the US has one of the highest: 76.6% of [Americans] prisoners are re-arrested within five years".[21] The Scandinavian method of incarceration seems to be successful: the Swedish incarceration rate decreased by 6% between 2011 and 2012.[22]

In place of prisons, some abolitionists propose community-controlled courts, councils, or assemblies to control the problem of social crime.[23] They argue that with the destruction of capitalism, and the self-management of production by workers and communities, property crimes would largely vanish. A large part of the problem, according to some, is the way the judicial system deals with prisoners, people, and capital. They argue that there would be fewer prisoners if society treated people more fairly, regardless of gender, color, ethnic background, sexual orientation, education, etc. This is proven with the creation of private prisons in America and corporations like Correction Corporation of America (CCA). Its shareholders benefit from the expansion of prisons and tougher laws on crime. More prisoners is seen as beneficial for business.[24]

Opponents of the abolition argue that none of the arguments above address the protection of non-criminal population from the effects of crime, and from particularly violent criminals.

Prison abolitionists such as Amanda Pustlinik take issue with the fact that prisons are used as a "default asylum" for many individuals with mental illness.[40] One question that is often asked by some prison abolitionists is:

"why do governmental units choose to spend billions of dollars a year to concentrate people with serious illnesses in a system designed to punish intentional lawbreaking, when doing so matches neither the putative purposes of that system nor most effectively addresses the issues posed by that population?" [40]

This question is often one of the major pieces of evidence that prison abolitionist claim highlights the depravity of the penal system. Many of these prison abolitionists often state that mentally ill offenders, violent and non-violent, should be treated in mental hospitals not prisons.[41] There are more people with mental illness in prisons that in psychiatric hospitals.[42] By keeping the mentally ill in prisons they claim that rehabilitation cannot occur because prisons are not the correct environment to deal with deep seated psychological problems and facilitate rehabilitative practices.[41] Individuals with mental illnesses that have led them to commit any crime have a much higher chance of committing suicide while in prison because of the lack of proper medical attention.[43] The increased risk of suicide is said to be because there is much stigma around mental illness and lack of adequate treatments within hospitals.[43] The whole point of the penal system is to rehabilitate and reform individuals who have willingly transgressed on the law. According to many prison abolitionists however, when mentally ill persons, often for reasons outside of their cognitive control, commit illegal acts prisons are not the best place for them to receive the help necessary for their rehabilitation.[41] For many prison abolitionists, if for no other reason than the fact that mentally ill individuals will not be receiving the same potential for rehabilitation as the non-mentally ill prison population, prisons are considered to be unjust and therefore violate their Sixth Amendment and Fifth Amendment Rights, in the U.S., and their chance to rehabilitate and function outside of the prison.[40][40][41][44] In America, by violating an individual's rights as a citizen, prison abolitionists see no reason for prisons to exist, and again, offer another reason people within the movement demand for the abolition of prisons.[40][41][44]

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Prison abolition movement - Wikipedia

The Welfare Reform and Act 2016 legislated for the abolition of the Work-Related Activity Component (WRAC)of ESA for new claimants from April 2017. Based on 2016-17 rates, this equates to a reduction of 29.05 a week for claimants in the Work-Related Activity Group (WRAG). Alongside this, the Government announced "new funding for additional support to help claimants return to work"

ESA is an "income replacement" benefitfor people who have a health condition or disability which limits their ability to work. As of February 2016 there were around 2.4 million ESA claimants in Great Britain, including450,000 in the Work-Related Activity Group.

There are two forms of ESA:

Income-related ESA will be replaced by Universal Credit; contributory ESA will remain as a separate benefit. The Government currently expects the introduction of Universal Credit to be fully complete by 2022.

A person must undergo a Work Capability Assessment to be eligible for ESA. There are three possible outcomes of a Work Capability Assessment;

Following the assessment, successful ESA claimants receive a standard rate plus an additional amount.

The standard rate of ESA is currently 73.10 a week, plus either:

These additions are known as the Support Component and the Work-Related Activity Component, respectively.

In the Summer Budget 2015, it was announced that the Work-Related Activity Component paid to those in the WRAG would be abolished for new claims from April 2017. The equivalent element in Universal Credit will also be abolished. This will be a reduction of 29.05 a week (based on 2016-17 rates) and aligns the rate of payment with those claiming Jobseekers Allowance (2016-17 rate: 73.10 a week). Existing claimants will not be affected, while there will be protections for those who may move into the WRAG or Universal Credit equivalent from the Support Group.

The changes were introduced to remove the financial incentives that could otherwise discourage claimants from taking steps back to work. 640 million a year of savings were initially forecast by 2020-21; this was later revised to 450 million a year.

The changes were widely criticised by disabled charities. The idea that the WRAC incentivises claimants to not look for work has been particularly disputed.

The proposals were opposed by opposition parties. Amendments to retain the component (and equivalent in Universal Credit) were tabled and agreed at the Lords Report Stage of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016. The Lords vote followed the publication ofa review initiated by Members of the House of Lords and supported by disability charities; the "Halving the Gap?" review. The review recommended that theGovernment should not proceed with the removal of the Work-Related ActivityComponent.

These amendmentswere overturned by the Commons. A further amendment requiring the Government to provide analysis of the impact of the changes before introducing them was also proposed by the Lords, and subsequently overturned by the Commons.

Alongside the changes to the WRAC was an announcement to provide new funding for additional support to help claimants return to work. The Government has since announced a series of measures and funding to deliver this, including;

60 million per year rising to 100 million per year for practical employment support, including an additional 15 million in 2017-18 directed at the local Jobcentre PlusFlexible Support Fund, to be set asidespecifically forthose with limited capability to work

Further detail of the additional employment support has been set out in the Government's October 2016 Green Paper, Improving Lives. This was published instead of a previously announced White Paper.

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Abolition of the ESA Work-Related Activity Component ...

The Abolition of Man is a 1943 book by C. S. Lewis. It is subtitled "Reflections on education with special reference to the teaching of English in the upper forms of schools," and uses that as a starting point for a defense of objective value and natural law, and a warning of the consequences of doing away with or "debunking" those things. It defends science as something worth pursuing but criticizes using it to debunk valuesthe value of science itself being among themor defining it to exclude such values. The book was first delivered as a series of three evening lectures at King's College, Newcastle, part of the University of Durham, as the Riddell Memorial Lectures on February 2426, 1943.

Lewis begins with a critical response to The Green Book, by Gaius and Titius, i.e. The Control of Language: A Critical Approach to Reading and Writing, published in 1939 by Alex King and Martin Ketley.[1] The Green book was used as a text for upper form students in British schools.[2]

Lewis criticises the authors for subverting student values. He claims that they teach that all statements of value (such as "this waterfall is sublime") are merely statements about the speaker's feelings and say nothing about the object. Lewis says that such a subjective view of values is faulty, and, on the contrary, certain objects and actions merit positive or negative reactions: that a waterfall can actually be objectively praiseworthy, and that one's actions can be objectively good or evil. In any case, Lewis notes, this is a philosophical position rather than a grammatical one, and so parents and teachers who give such books to their children and students are having them read the "work of amateur philosophers where they expected the work of professional grammarians."

Lewis cites ancient thinkers such as Plato, Aristotle and Augustine, who believed that the purpose of education was to train children in "ordinate affections," that is, to train them to like and dislike what they ought; to love the good and hate the bad. He says that although these values are universal, they do not develop automatically or inevitably in children (and so are not "natural" in that sense of the word), but must be taught through education. Those who lack them lack the specifically human element, the trunk that unites intellectual man with visceral (animal) man, and may be called "men without chests".

Lewis criticizes modern attempts to debunk "natural" values (such as those that would deny objective value to the waterfall) on rational grounds. He says that there is a set of objective values that have been shared, with minor differences, by every culture "...the traditional moralities of East and West, the Christian, the Pagan, and the Jew...". Lewis calls this the Tao (which closely resembles Taoist usage).[a] Without the Tao, no value judgments can be made at all, and modern attempts to do away with some parts of traditional morality for some "rational" reason always proceed by arbitrarily selecting one part of the Tao and using it as grounds to debunk the others.

The final chapter describes the ultimate consequences of this debunking: a distant future in which the values and morals of the majority are controlled by a small group who rule by a "perfect" understanding of psychology, and who in turn, being able to "see through" any system of morality that might induce them to act in a certain way, are ruled only by their own unreflected whims. In surrendering rational reflection on their own motivations, the controllers will no longer be recognizably human, the controlled will be robot-like, and the Abolition of Man will have been completed.

An appendix to The Abolition of Man lists a number of basic values seen by Lewis as parts of the Tao, supported by quotations from different cultures.

A fictional treatment of the dystopian project to carry out the Abolition of Man is a theme of Lewis's novel That Hideous Strength.

Passages from The Abolition of Man are included in William Bennett's 1993 book The Book of Virtues.

Link:

The Abolition of Man - Wikipedia

PREAMBLE

[37 OF 1970]

An Act to regulate the employment of contract labour in certain establishments and to provide for its abolition in certain circumstances and for matters connected therewith.

Be it enacted by Parliament in the Twenty-first Year of the Republic of India as follows :-

(1) This Act may be called the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970.

(2) It extends to the whole of India.

(3) It shall come into force on such date1 as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, appoint and different dates may be appointed for different provisions of this Act.

(4) It applies (a) 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;

(b) to every contractor who employs or who employed on any day of the preceding twelve months twenty or more workmen : Provided that the appropriate Government may, after giving not less than two months notice of its intention so to do, by notification in the Official Gazette, apply the provisions of this Act to any establishment or contractor employing such number of workmen less than twenty as may be specified in the notification.

(5)(a) It shall not apply to establishments in which work only of an intermittent or casual nature is performed.

(b) If a question arises whether work performed in an establishment is of an intermittent or casual nature, the appropriate Government shall decide the question after consultation with the Central Board or, as the case may be, a State Board, and its decision shall be final.

Explanation : For the purpose of this sub-section, work performed in an establishment shall not be deemed to be of an intermittent nature- (i) if it was performed for more than one hundred and twenty days in the preceding twelve months, or

(ii) if it is of a seasonal character and is performed for more than sixty days in a year.

STATE AMENDMENT

Maharashtra. In section 1, in sub-section (5), after clause (b), add the following clause, namely:

(c) Notwithstanding anything contained in clause (b) or any other provisions of this Act, the work performed or carried out in the area of Special Economic Zone (declared as such by the Government of India), which is of ancillary nature such as canteen, gardening, cleaning, security, courier services, transport of raw material and finished products, or loading and unloading of goods within the premises of a factory or establishments which are declared 100 per cent. export units by Government, required to achieve the objective of a principal establishment in the said area, shall be deemed to be of temporary and intermittent nature irrespective of the period of performance of the work by the workers in such ancillary establishments.

[Vide The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) (Maharashtra Amendment) Act, 2005 (Maharashtra Act 13 of 2006), sec. 2 (w.e.f. 2-5-2006).]

COMMENTS

The Act is a piece of social legislation for the welfare of labourers whose conditions of service are not at all satisfactory and it should, therefore, be literally construed; Lionel Edward Ltd. v. Labour Enforcement Officer, 1977 Lab IC 1037 (Cal).

1. Came into force on 10-2-1971, vide G.S.R. 190, dated 1st February, 1971, published in the Gazette of India, Extra., Pt. II, Sec. 3(i), dated 10th February, 1971.

(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,

1(a) appropriate Government means, (i) in relation to an establishment in respect of which the appropriate Government under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (14 of 1947), is the Central Government, the Central Government; (ii) in relation to any other establishment, the Government of the State in which that other establishment is situated;

(b) a workman shall be deemed to be employed as contract labour in or in connection with the work of an establishment when he is hired in or in connection with such work by or through a contractor, with or without the knowledge of the principal employer;

(c) contractor, in relation to an establishment, means a person who undertakes to produce a given result for the establishment, other than a mere supply of goods or articles of manufacture to such establishment, through contract labour or who supplies contract labour for any work of the establishment and includes a sub-contractor;

(d) controlled industry means any industry the control of which by the Union has been declared by any Central Act to be expedient in the public interest;

(e) establishment means (i) any office or department of the Government or a local authority, or

(ii) any place where any industry, trade, business, manufacture or occupation is carried on;

(f) prescribed means prescribed by rules made under this Act;

(g) principal employer means (i) in relation to any office or department of the Government or a local authority, the head of that office or department or such other officer as the Government or the local authority, as the case may be, may specify in this behalf,

(ii) in a factory, the owner or occupier of the factory and where a person has been named as the manager of the factory under the Factories Act, 1948 (63 of 1948), the person so named,

(iii) in a mine, the owner or agent of the mine and where a person has been named as the manager of the mine, the person so named,

(iv) in any other establishment, any person responsible for the supervision and control of the establishment.

Explanation : For the purpose of sub-clause (iii) of this clause, the expressions mine, owner and agent shall have the meanings respectively assigned to them in clause (j), clause (l) and clause (c) of sub-section (1) of section 2 of the Mines Act, 1952 (35 of 1952);

(h) wages shall have the meaning assigned to it in clause (vi) of section 2 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1936 (4 of 1936);

(i) workman means, any person employed, in or in connection with the work of any establishment to do any skilled, semi-skilled or un-skilled manual, supervisory, technical or clerical work for hire or reward, whether the terms of employment be express or implied but does not include any such person (A) who is employed mainly in a managerial or administrative capacity; or

(B) who, being employed in a supervisory capacity draws wages exceeding five hundred rupees per mensem or exercises, either by the nature of the duties attached to the office or by reason of the powers vested in him, functions mainly of a managerial nature; or

(C) who is an out-worker, that is to say, a person to whom any articles and materials are given out by or on behalf of the principal employer to be made up, cleaned, washed, altered, ornamented, finished, repaired, adapted or otherwise processed for sale for the purposes of the trade or business of the principal employer and the process is to be carried out either in the home of the out-worker or in some other premises, not being premises under the control and management of the principal employer.

(2) Any reference in this Act to a law which is not in force in the State of Jammu and Kashmir shall, in relation to that State, be construed as a reference to the corresponding law, if any, in force in that State.

STATE AMENDMENT

Andhra Pradesh. In section 2, in sub-section (1), after clause (d), insert the following clause, namely:

(dd) core activity of an establishment means any activity for which the establishment is set up and includes any activity which is essential or necessary to the core activity, but does not include,

(1) sanitation works, including sweeping, cleaning, dusting and collection and disposal of all kinds of waste;

(2) watch and ward services including security service;

(3) canteen and catering services;

(4) loading and unloading operations;

(5) running of hospitals, educational and training institutions, guest houses, clubs and the like where they are in the nature of support services of an establishment;

(6) courier services which are in nature of support services of an establishment;

(7) civil and other constructional works, including maintenance;

(8) gardening and maintenance of lawns, etc.;

(9) house keeping and laundry services, etc., where they are in nature support services of an establishment;

(10) transport services including ambulance services;

(11) any activity of intermittent in nature even if that constitutes a core activity of an establishment; and

(12) any other activity which is incidental to the core activity:

Provided that the above activities by themselves are not the core activities of such establishment.

[ Vide Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) (Andhra Pradesh) (Amendment) Act, 2003 (Andhra Pradesh Act 10 of 2003), sec. 2.]

COMMENTS

If the workman is not hired through a contractor holding a valid licence under the Act, he would be a workman employed by the management itself; Workmen of Best & Crompton Industries Ltd. v. Best and Crompton Engineering Ltd., (1985) II LLN 169 (Mad).

1. Subs. by Act 14 of 1986, sec. 2, for clause (a) (w.r.e.f. 28-1-1986).

(1) The Central Government shall as soon as may be, constitute a board to be called the Central Advisory Contract Labour Board (hereinafter referred to as the Central Board) to advise the Central Government on such matters arising out of the administration of this Act as may be referred to it and to carry out other functions assigned to it under this Act.

(2) The Central Board shall consist of (a) a Chairman to be appointed by the Central Government;

(b) the Chief Labour Commissioner (Central), ex officio;

(c) such number of members, not exceeding seventeen but not less than eleven, as the Central Government may nominate to represent that Government, the Railways, the coal industry, the mining industry, the contractors, the workmen and, any other interests which, in the opinion of the Central Government, ought to be represented on the Central Board.

(3) The number of persons to be appointed as members from each of the categories specified in sub-section (2), the term of office and other conditions of service of, the procedure to be followed in the discharge of their functions by, and the manner of filling vacancies among, the members of the Central Board shall be such as may be prescribed :

Provided that the number of members nominated to represent the workmen shall not be less than the number of members nominated to represent the principal employers and the contractors.

state amendment

Andhra Pradesh.Omit section 3.

[Vide Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) (Andhra Pradesh) (Amendment) Act, 2003 (Andhra Pradesh Act 10 of 2003), sec. 3.]

(1) The State Government may constitute a board to be called the State Advisory Contract Labour Board (hereinafter referred to as the State Board) to advise the State Government on such matters arising out of the administration of this Act as may be referred to it and to carry out other functions assigned to it under this Act.

(2) The State Board shall consist of (a) a Chairman to be appointed by the State Government;

(b) the Labour Commissioner, ex officio, or in his absence any other officer nominated by the State Government in that behalf;

(c) such number of members, not exceeding eleven but not less than nine, as the State Government may nominate to represent that Government, the industry, the contractors, the workmen and any other interests which, in the opinion of the State Government, ought to be represented on the State Board.

(3) The number of persons to be appointed as members from each of the categories specified in sub-section (2), the term of office and other conditions of service of, the procedure to be followed in the discharge of their functions by, and the manner of filling vacancies among, the members of the State Board shall be such as may be prescribed:

Provided that the number of members nominated to represent the workmen shall not be less than the number of members nominated to represent the principal employees and the contractors.

state amendment

Andhra Pradesh.Omit section 4.

[Vide Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) (Andhra Pradesh) (Amendment) Act, 2003 (Andhra Pradesh Act 10 of 2003), sec. 3.]

(1) The Central Board or the State Board, as the case may be, may constitute such committees and for such purpose or purposes as it may think fit.

(2) The committee constituted under sub-section (1) shall meet at such time and places and shall observe such rules of procedure in regard to the transaction of business at its meetings as may be prescribed.

(3) The members of a committee shall be paid such fees and allowances for attending its meetings as may be prescribed : Provided that no fees shall be payable to a member who is an officer of Government or of any corporation established by any law for the time being in force.

state amendment

Andhra Pradesh.Omit section 5.

[Vide Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) (Andhra Pradesh) (Amendment) Act, 2003 (Andhra Pradesh Act 10 of 2003), sec. 3.]

The appropriate Government may, by an order notified in the Official Gazette (a) appoint such persons, being Gazetted Officers of Government, as it thinks fit to be registering officers for the purposes of this Chapter; and

(b) define the limits, within which a registering officer shall exercise the powers conferred on him by or under this Act.

(1) Every principal employer of an establishment to which this Act applies shall, within such period as the appropriate Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, fix in this behalf with respect to establishments generally or with respect to any class of them, make an application to the registering officer in the prescribed manner for registration of the establishment :

Provided that the registering officer may entertain any such application for registration after expiry of the period fixed in this behalf if the registering officer is satisfied that the applicant was prevented by sufficient cause from making the application in time.

(2) If the application for registration is complete in all respects, the registering officer shall register the establishment and issue to the principal employer of the establishment a certificate of registration containing such particulars as may be prescribed.

COMMENTS

(i) Contravention of the provisions of section 7 is an offence; Deena Nath v. National Fertilizers, 1992 LLR 46.

(ii) An establishment of Contract Labour required registration under section 7 of the Act; Anapal v. J.S.E.B., 2003 (2) LLJ 335 (Jhar).

If the registering officer is satisfied, either on a reference made to him in this behalf or otherwise, that the registration of any establishment has been obtained by mis-representation or suppression of any material fact, or that for any other reason the registration has become useless or ineffective and, therefore requires to be revoked, the registering officer may, after giving an opportunity to the principal employer of the establishment to be heard and with the previous approval of the appropriate Government, revoke the registration.

No principal employer of an establishment, to which this Act applies, shall (a) in the case of an establishment required to be registered under section 7, but which has not been registered within the time fixed for the purpose under that section,

(b) in the case of an establishment the registration in respect of which has been revoked under section 8, employ contract labour in the establishment after the expiry of the period referred to in clause (a) or after the revocation of registration referred to in clause (b), as the case may be.

(1) Notwithstanding anything contained in this Act, the appropriate Government may, after consultation with the Central Board or, as the case may be, a State Board, prohibit, by notification in the Official Gazette, employment of contract labour in any process, operation or other work in any establishment.

(2) Before issuing any notification under sub-section (1) in relation to an establishment, the appropriate Government shall have regard to the conditions of work and benefits provided for the contract labour in that establishment and other relevant factors, such as (a) whether the process, operation or other work is incidental to, or necessary for the industry, trade, business, manufacture or occupation that is carried on in the establishment;

(b) whether it is of perennial nature, that is to say, it is of sufficient duration having regard to the nature of industry, trade, business, manufacture or occupation carried on in that establishment;

(c) whether it is done ordinarily through regular workmen in that establishment or an establishment similar thereto;

(d) whether it is sufficient to employ considerable number of whole-time workmen.

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Contract Labour Act, 1970 - Vakilno1.com

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Whereas the other prizes are awarded by specialist committees based in Sweden, the Peace Prize is awarded by a committee appointed by the Norwegian Storting. According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize is to go to whoever "shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses". The prize includes a medal, a personal diploma, and a large sum of prize money (currently 8 million Swedish crowns).

The Nobel Peace Prize has been called "the world's most prestigious prize". With the award to The European Union in 2012, a total of 101 individuals and 24 organizations have been awarded the Peace Prize. The Prize is awarded at a ceremony in the Oslo City Hall on December 10, the date on which Alfred Nobel died.

ON

Photo: Odd-Steinar Tllefsen / The Norwegian Nobel Institute

From the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony of 2006

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Nobel Peace Prize | Nobels fredspris