Petition against the anti-labour attitude of the Supreme Court of India

To,
Hon'ble Chief Justice of India
New Delhi
May your Lordship, Consider the following.

We the undersigned, trade unionists, labour lawyers, judges, journalists, academicians and other professionals being alarmed by the uncritical support given by the Supreme Court to corporations and the employers in their legal struggles against labour, do hereby protest the present anti-labour attitude of the court.

Going against all the well-established principles of labour law and even Constitutional Bench decisions in favour of labour, Supreme Court has come out in support of globalization, privatization and structural adjustment. That this "globalization" hits the poor the hardest in employment, health-care and education seems to be of little concern to the Apex Court. That two judge decisions can go against larger bench decisions in favour of labour and sweep them away in the name of globalization is a sign of how far the Apex Court has strayed from the 'socialist' principle in the Constitution.

In particular we protest the decision of the Supreme Court in Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) case, which has condemned millions of contract labour to lives of bondage and slavery. We protest Umadevi's case, which has done likewise for casual and ad-hoc workers condemning them to termination of services or to a life of slavery because now they cannot be regularized even after working for decades. We protest the decisions of back wages where the Supreme Court has deprived thousands of workers of their back wages after they succeeded in Labour Courts and even the High Courts. We protest the "bus conductor" syndrome of the Supreme Court where massive corruption cases are not tackled while the bus conductors are made an example of and their services are terminated for even small amounts found missing. We protest the stay orders being granted by the High Courts on minimum wages notifications. We protest the reference of Bangalore Water Supply case to a larger bench of the Supreme Court as another example of the attempt by the higher judiciary to do away with the earlier labour law jurisprudence in favour of labour.

As a result the workers' fate in the labour and industrial courts is sealed. Litigation has gone down drastically as workers are demoralized by the attitude of the Judges.

We also protest the decisions of the Supreme Court dealing with permanency and the 240-day requirement and particularly the decisions that put the burden of proof on the worker.

The net result of this very wrong approach of the upper judiciary, workmen and the trade unions have been cornered, litigation is deterred and the rights of labour have been taken away.

We do not believe that such an approach is either permissible or fair. We hope that such an approach does not continue. We call upon all judges to please maintain a balance between capital and labour and be fair and impartial in the administration of justice.

Yours faithfully,