Organised and Unorganised Sector
ORGANISED AND UNORGANISED SECTOR
One of the two main tasks entrusted to our commission is to propose umbrella legislation for workers in the unorganised sector. We have also been asked to see that the legislation, and the system that will be built around it, will assure at least a minimum protection and welfare to workers in the unorganised sector. We are deeply conscious of the urgency and importance of this task. In fact, both the main tasks entrusted to our commission are urgent and difficult. But in a sense, it can be said that visualizing a system of effective protection and welfare for the unorganised sector is a shade more difficult and complicated, if only because of the dimensions and variety of the workforce in the sector, and the various factors that have to be taken into consideration.
Unlike the organised sector, in this sector we are dealing with workers who have not acquired a high profile, tasted the benefits that can be gained from organisation, or derived the advantages flowing from high visibility. In the unorganised sector, we have to deal with workers who are engaged in a variety of occupations or employments, ranging from those like forest workers, tribals trying to follow traditional vocations within their traditional habitats, and fishermen who venture out to sea in vulnerable canoes, to those who are working in their homes with software, or assembling parts for a highly sophisticated product. Many of them are victims of invisibility. the laws or welfare systems that we propose for them cannot be effective unless they themselves are conscious of the laws, and acquire the strength to ensure that laws are brought into force; unless there are effective means to implement, monitor and provide quick redress; unless breaches of the law are punished with deterrent penalties, and unless the organs of public opinion and movements and organisations mount vigil, and intercede to ensure that the provisions of the laws and welfare systems are acted
One of the two main tasks entrusted to our commission is to propose umbrella legislation for workers in the unorganised sector. We have also been asked to see that the legislation, and the system that will be built around it, will assure at least a minimum protection and welfare to workers in the unorganised sector. We are deeply conscious of the urgency and importance of this task. In fact, both the main tasks entrusted to our commission are urgent and difficult. But in a sense, it can be said that visualizing a system of effective protection and welfare for the unorganised sector is a shade more difficult and complicated, if only because of the dimensions and variety of the workforce in the sector, and the various factors that have to be taken into consideration.
Unlike the organised sector, in this sector we are dealing with workers who have not acquired a high profile, tasted the benefits that can be gained from organisation, or derived the advantages flowing from high visibility. In the unorganised sector, we have to deal with workers who are engaged in a variety of occupations or employments, ranging from those like forest workers, tribals trying to follow traditional vocations within their traditional habitats, and fishermen who venture out to sea in vulnerable canoes, to those who are working in their homes with software, or assembling parts for a highly sophisticated product. Many of them are victims of invisibility. the laws or welfare systems that we propose for them cannot be effective unless they themselves are conscious of the laws, and acquire the strength to ensure that laws are brought into force; unless there are effective means to implement, monitor and provide quick redress; unless breaches of the law are punished with deterrent penalties, and unless the organs of public opinion and movements and organisations mount vigil, and intercede to ensure that the provisions of the laws and welfare systems are acted