Authorities in two Indian states to tighten workplace inspections over employee deaths

Authorities in two Indian states that are drivers of economic growth are drafting tougher workplace screening rules to protect white-collar workers over the death of a young executive at global consulting firm Ernst & Young (EY) from overwork. This was reported by Reuters on Wednesday, December 11.

India's labor laws, which have been in place without updates for decades, are largely focused on blue-collar workers, leaving other categories of workers vulnerable to workplace abuses such as strict work schedules and mass voluntary dismissals, unions say.

In Bangalore state, two labor ministry officials said the department had participated in inspections to ensure firms were complying with legal rules on overtime and time logs "due to workers' complaints of overwork."

"In India and other South Asian countries, many forms of labor rights protection are provided only to blue-collar workers, and other employees are often not even recognized as workers," said Elena Gerasimova, a specialist in labor law and labor standards at the International Labor Organization (ILO).

Earlier, on December 4, the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) reported that employees of British publications The Guardian and The Observer for the first time in 50 years went on strike in connection with the proposed sale of The Observer to the news portal Tortoise Media.

In late November, it was reported that nearly 10 million parcels in Canada had not reached their recipients due to the ongoing boycott of Canada Post postal workers. Company officials have proposed an 11.5% pay raise for postal workers over four years and additional paid vacation, but the postal workers' union has called for a 24% pay increase over the same period.