Bridging the Labour Regulation Gaps in India’s Informal Migrant Economy amid Covid-19 Pandemic: Uncovering Challenges and Results

Abstract

Globalisation and liberalisation have enabled the promotion of the working force, leading to an increase in migrant labourers due to social, economic, and political factors responsible for the displacement from rural to urban areas within India and outside India. The author focuses on the jurisprudence and case law favouring the interests of labour, human dignity and social security, constitutional imperatives ensuring the human rights of migrant workers and the obligations of the State, social security legislation and the labour law curbing the exploitation of migrant labourers at national and international levels. The author examines the work of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and UN specialised agencies regarding protection of migrant labour from exploitation, which have been brought in various covenants, conventions and instruments to uphold human rights of migrant labour and social security. Emerging trends in labour regulation have also been covered. The issues and perspectives of the condition and demography of the migrant labour prove that migrant labour are still not free from the exploitation and ill-treatment and deprived of socially beneficial measures, namely, minimum wages, allowances for disabilities, unemployment, etc. The paper focuses on the recent trends that emerged due to the spread of Coronavirus disease and lockdown along with the judicial response and a critical appraisal of the new Labour Code.