Vol. 10 · pages 226–230

209 THE FACTORIES (SECOND AMENDMENT) BILL voluntarily by an employer and the Government is satisfied of its efficacy, Government has been giving power to exempt a factory from the obligations in this Act. I find that the position in Great Britain is also similar in this matter. Under the British system, there is a Holidays with Pay Act of 1938 and 2,300,000 people are covered by it. The rest of them, namely, 5 millions, get it under voluntary agreement, not under the Act and 4,000,700 get under what is called a long-standing custom. Sir Cowasjee Jehangir : Where is the provision whereby an employer can postpone giving that leave ? The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar : I am coming to that. Now, Sir, one other point I wanted to deal with, as I said, was this compulsory versus voluntary. The other point that was raised by my friend Prof. Ranga and also by Mr. Chettiar was that we have made no specific provision against an employer entering into an unfair practice whereby he would discharge an employee in order to prevent him from earning his holiday. To that point I had referred in my opening speech when I made the motion and I said that while Government is aware that certain practices may develop, Government does not think that they ought to take any action straightway. Government would prefer to wait and watch and see which side resorts to what sort of stratagem in order to over-reach the other side. But, as I said if there is a strong feeling on the point and those who represent labour are able to convince the Select Committee that it is necessary straightway to have a provision entered into the Act itself to prevent any such practices, it will be open to them to move and get it through. Government does not regard that as a matter of principle and will not stand in the way of the thing being done in the Select Committee. The other point which has been raised is whether this question of leave should be entirely made dependent upon the wishes of the employee, namely, that the employee should have a right to determine from what date and at what time he should exercise his holiday. Now, we have deliberately made no provision in the Bill for that and we have left it to the Provincial Governments to make rules to regulate what should be done with regard to that particular point. I think it would be desirable in an experiment of this kind not to tie down everything

210 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES by statute. It would be better if the matter was left to be regulated by rules for which the Bill authorises the Provincial Governments to make, because, as the House knows, it is much easier to change a rule than to change a statute. But as I said, if the parties to this Bill who are concerned and affected do desire that this should be made the subject matter of a statute, it will again be open to the Select Committee to do so. I do not think there is any point raised by any Honourable Member which I have not covered and I therefore do not propose to say anything more in support of the motion I have made. Mr. Deputy President (Mr. Akhil Chandra Datta): The question is : “That the Bill further to amend the Factories Act, 1934 (Second Amendment) be referred to a Select Committee consisting of Nawab Siddique Ali Khan Bahadur Shaikh Fazl-i-Haq Piracha, Mr. R. R. Gupta, Mr. A. C. Inskip, Sir Vithal N. Chandavarkar, Rao Bahadur N. Siva Raj, Mr. N. M. Joshi, Mr. D. S. Joshi, and the Mover and that the number of members whose presence shall be necessary to constitute a meeting of the Committee shall be five.” The motion was adopted. zz

38 * The Payment of Wages (Amendment) Bill The Honourable Dr. B. R. Ambedkar (Labour Member): Mr. Deputy President, I move : “That the Bill further to amend the Payment of Wages Act, 1936, be referred to a Select Committee consisting of Seth Yusuf Abdoola Haroon, Mr. Muhammad Hussain Chaudhurv, Mr. Lalchand Navalrai. Mr. A. C. Inskip, Sir Vithal N. Chandavarkar, Mr. N. M. Joshi, Dr. Sir Ratanji Dinshaw Dalal, Mr. D. S. Joshi, and the mover, and that the number of members whose presence shall be necessary to constitute a meeting of the Committee shall be five.” Sir, the Payment of Wages Act, to which the present Bill proposes to make certain amendments, was passed in the year 1936. This Bill, at the time when it was passed, was recognised as an experimental measure for the simple reason that when the Bill was drafted we had not before us any model piece of legislation on which we could have modelled the measure which is embodied in this Act. We have had now an experience of practically six years of this measure and in the course of the working it has been discovered that the Bill suffers from many defects. If I may tell the House, it has been pointed out that there are practically 30 or 40 amendments which it is necessary to make to improve the Payment of Wages Act. The government of India realise that at present they have not got the time to devote to all the amendments to the measure which different parties have suggested and consequently they do not propose to engage themselves upon improving the Act and to remove all the defects that have been suggested. What the Government of India proposes to do through the present amending Bill is to take certain defects which are of such administrative importance that unless and until those defects are removed, it will be difficult to administer the measure with the intention which lay behind the act when it was passed. *Legislative Assembly, Debates, Vol. V, 16th November 1944, pp. 889-92.

212 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Sir, taking the Bill clause by clause : Clause 2 of the Bill seeks to make certain amendments in the definition of the word “wages”. I do not wish to weary the House by repeating seriatim the defects which different parties to the Bill have suggested that they have found in the present definition of the word ‘wages’ as it stands. But I might mention some important ones. It has been said in a judicial decision given by the High Court of Bombay that the present definition of “wages” is so drafted that it is possible for a workman not only to claim wages which he has earned but also wages which might be called potential wages-wages which he might cam. That certainly was not the intention of the original measure. Another defect which has been suggested with regard to this definition is that it allows a workman employed on the outturn basis to claim wages irrespective of his outturn. It has been suggested that there is a confusion in the definition which does not quite distinguish the case of a workman employed on a time basis and a workman employed on outturn basis. It has also been suggested in certain quarters that some of the words which now occur in the definition are superfluous, that they need not be there and that their presence only causes confusion. I might refer to the words “includes any bonus or additional remuneration of the nature aforesaid which would be so payable”. It has been suggested to us that these words may not have any meaning other than the one which is already included in the previous part of this definition. It has also been suggested that while the definition of “wages” was adequate before the system of dearness allowance brought about by the war came into existence, the definition today is inadequate because it is open for an employer to argue that the dearness allowance is not part of wages. Now, the definition that we have suggested in the amending Bill seeks to remove all these difficulties. It seems to make the definition simple. I ought to tell the House that I am myself not very confident that the draft, as it stands in the amending Bill, carries out the intention which lies behind this original Act. I do not regard the definition which we have proposed as sacrosanct and if the members of the Select Committee are able to suggest a better one I should certainly raise no objection to the further amendment of the definition as it now stands in the amending Bill.

213 THE PAYMENT OF WAGES (AMENDMENT) BILL Coming to clause 3, it is a clause which makes two amendments to the present section 5. As the Honourable Members will remember, section 5 is a section which prescribes the period during which wages must be paid ; and for the purpose of prescribing the period for the payment of wages, the section divides factories into two categories. In one category are placed factories which employ workmen whose number is less than 1,000. In the second category are placed factories which employ more than 1,000 employees. After making this division, the section provides that in the factories which come into category No. 1, payment must be made within 7 days, while in the case of the latter the limit of the period is prescribed to be 10 days. In actual practice it has been found difficult to observe the terms of this section, and the reason for that is very simple. The division of the factories is based upon the number of employees. As the House will realise, the number of workmen is never a constant figure ; it always changes. For instance, if the number of employees goes down by one, the category automatically shifts from category No. 1 to category No. 2. Similarly, if the number of employees is increased by one, category No. 2 goes into category No. 1. It is believed—and I think very rightly—that this discriminating principle is neither very just nor administratively feasible. Consequently what the amendment seeks to do is to abolish this distinction whereby the factories have been divided into two categories and adopt the general principle that in all factories, irrespective of the number of employees that are working there, there shall be a uniform rule, namely, that the payment must be made within ten days. The second amendment which clause 3 seeks to make is also, as the House will see, very necessary. In section 5, provision is made for the payment of an employee who is discharged from service. The section as it stands today provides that the payment to a discharged employee should be on the second working day. Now, Sir, if the Payment of Wages Act was only applicable to perennial factories which are working throughout the day, there can be no difficulty arising from the section as it stands now. But in the case of seasonal factories, the difficulty that would arise is absolutely genuine because, supposing an employee was discharged on the last working day of the factory and the factory being a seasonal factory was closed down thereafter, then the second working day would come after a long interval which it would