University Library, University of North Bengal

EDITORIAL

The conceptual understanding of employment laws in the globalised era deals with certain issues of labour laws in the context of Human Rights Jurisprudence. Considering this fact our Department had organized a National Seminar on "Employment Laws in the Globalised Era: Changes and Trends in India" on 23-24 November, 2013. This special issue of our journal is the upshot of that seminar. The main aim of the employment related laws is to provide social and economic security to the workers following the principle of social justice as enshrined in the preamble and Directive Principles of lndian Constitution. Basically labour law is the art of establishing economic order in the society sustained by social justice. A nation achieves economic growth and industrial success through the sweat and hard labour of the working class, hence, the fruit of the industrialization and economic growth must reach to the workers whether they are working in organised sector or unorganised sector. It is also a material fact that since the initialisation of the Globalisation policies, the nation has witnessed a paradigm shift from the welfare state to consumer state which is entirely based on the market economy and theory of maximum profit which decimate the basic ethics of labour welfare. The shifting also indicates the attitude of the state from key matters of labour welfare and employment protection of the working class. The shifting has paved the way for the employer to adopt repressive employment policies which is based on the principle "hire and fire" and "zero social security". Further, the employer has been given free hand to decide their own labour policies and in consequence, new employment terms have come into the light i.e. flexible labour, term employment, contract labour, ad-hoc employment and casual labour etc. The employment of this sort of labour certainly leads to the exploitation and denial of social justice as mandated in our Constitution. No doubt that the globalization policies have added to the plight to workers condition in the name of "structural reforms" and "competitive market economy". The sad part of entire labour movement in India is that even no political party is serious about doing something for the labour welfare and nothing has been mentioned in their political manifestos which dealt with issue of labour welfare and socioeconomic security to the employees. We are feeling proud to declare that our esteemed paper presenters· (came from various parts of India as well as from abroad) had covered an extensive study on labour laws and -its related issues. Some of the important areas were, protection rights of the construction workers; objective, mission and functions of the ILO; employment discrimination against women (with special reference to sexual harassment); industrial dispute settlement mechanism; judiciary's role in bringing out changes in labour jurisprudence: role of WTO; human rights of the migrant workers; job reservation in Indian corporate sector; post economic reforms' impact on trade unions etc. We are also very much pleased to inform that this issue is not only enriched by the doctrinal research papers but it comprises empirical research papers also. During the time of selection of the articles, the Editorial Board also kept in their mind that professors, research scholars, students all segments of population within the academic sector must give a chance. lf this issue will help academicians by any means, only then the effort o the authors and Editors may be considered as successful.

Dr. Rathin Bandyopadhyay
Chief Editor