Labour codes

Explanation

Statement 1 is incorrect. The OSH Code, 2020 primarily applies to establishments, factories, mines, docks, building and construction work, and plantations above a threshold size. Agricultural workers working on farms — who constitute the vast majority of informal agricultural labour — are not substantively brought under the detailed hazard-management, welfare, and working-condition provisions of the OSH Code. The Code explicitly excludes or does not extend most provisions to the unorganised agricultural sector in the same manner as organised industry. This is a major gap in Indian occupational safety law that activists and experts have repeatedly flagged. Statement 2 is correct. The Code on Social Security, 2020 is notable for formally recognising gig workers and platform workers as distinct categories and creating a mechanism for their social security (administered through a separate fund). Simultaneously, it provides for welfare of unorganised workers — including agricultural workers — through the recognition and administration of separate welfare boards and funds (continuing the legacy of the Unorganised Workers' Social Security Act, 2008). These are genuinely separate and distinct mechanisms within the same Code. Statement 3 is correct. The Code on Wages, 2019 introduces the concept of a 'floor wage' — a national-level minimum below which no State or Central government may fix minimum wages for any scheduled employment, including agriculture. This floor wage applies across all workers regardless of sector, providing a legal minimum wage floor to informal and agricultural workers who were previously subject to widely varying and often inadequate State-level minimum wages. This is a structurally significant reform because it addresses one of the core vulnerabilities of informal agricultural labour — poverty wages — by inserting a non-negotiable wage floor into the legal framework.

Explanation

Statement 1 is correct. The Industrial Relations Code, 2020 is a consolidating legislation that replaced three historic labour laws: the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947 (which governed industrial dispute resolution), the Trade Unions Act, 1926 (which governed trade union formation and registration), and the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946 (which governed conditions of employment). This consolidation is a central feature of India's Second-Generation Labour Reforms. Statement 2 is incorrect. The Code designates the central government — not state governments — as the appropriate government for establishments such as railways, banks, and mines. These are sectors that fall under the Union List or are of national strategic importance. The state government is the appropriate government only for all other establishments not specifically enumerated under the central government's jurisdiction.

Explanation

The Code on Wages, 2019 is correctly described in Pair 1 — it replaces exactly four pre-existing laws: the Payment of Wages Act (1936), the Minimum Wages Act (1948), the Payment of Bonus Act (1965), and the Equal Remuneration Act (1976), and it regulates wage and bonus payments across all employments involving trade, industry, business, or manufacturing. Pair 2 is incorrectly matched: the description of regulating wage and bonus payments in all employments where trade, industry, business, or manufacturing is carried on belongs to the Code on Wages, 2019 — not to the Industrial Relations Code, 2020. The Industrial Relations Code, 2020 deals with matters such as trade unions, industrial disputes, and conditions of employment, not wage and bonus regulation. Pair 3 is correctly matched: the Code on Social Security, 2020 is indeed one of the four Labour Codes into which the central government consolidated 29 labour laws (the other three being the Code on Wages 2019, the Industrial Relations Code 2020, and the Occupational Safety, Health, and Working Conditions Code 2020).