In an earlier post on the occasion of International Workers’ Day, we analysed the ideas and provisions relating to workers’ rights in M.N. Roy’s Constitution of Free India : A Draft (1944). We now turn to the position on workers’ substantive rights in the ‘Draft Constitution of Indian Republic’, which was published by the Socialist Party in 1948 [hereinafter ‘the Draft Constitution (Socialist Party)’]. In this post, we compare and contrast the texts of the Draft Constitution (Socialist Party) and the Constitution of India, 1950 [hereinafter ‘the Constitution of India’] in terms of two shared themes. These are firstly, the types and scope of workers’ rights that have been recognised in these documents; and secondly, whether and to what extent these rights were judicially enforceable.
Imaginations of Workers’ Substantive Rights
To some extent, there is an overlap between the substantive rights of workers that have been recognised under the Constitution of India and Draft Constitution (Socialist Party). For instance, in terms of civil-political rights, both the constitutional documents recognise citizens’ rights to assemble peacefully and form associations and unions (see here and here). These provisions provide a basis for workers to mobilise in different ways to assert their interests. Further, the constitutional documents deal with the abolition of forced labour (see here and here), and prohibit the engagement of children under 14 years of age in hazardous work (see here and here). Moreover, they guarantee the ‘equality of opportunity’ for all citizens in public employment, with a specific prohibition on discrimination based on the specified markers of identity (see here and here). These rights can potentially be deployed to make claims on the State to adopt different forms of affirmative action measures, to widen access to public employment for aspirants from marginalised communities (for enabling provisions to this effect, see here and here).
In terms of socio-economic rights, both the constitutional documents require the State to protect and promote citizens’ interests in relation to work, both at and beyond the workplace. The State is required to ensure, inter alia, adequate means of livelihood (see here and here); ‘just and humane’ working conditions (see here and here); provisions for maternity relief (see here and here); and sufficient opportunities for employment (see here and here). Further, the documents mandate the State to protect workers’ ‘health’ and ‘strength’ against exploitation (see here and here).
However, the Draft Constitution (Socialist Party) encapsulates a more expansive vision of workers’ rights as compared to the Constitution of India. This is because the Draft Constitution contain a range of specific protections which govern workers’ rights and their relationships with employers, and which do not find a mention in the Constitution of India.
For instance, the Draft Constitution (Socialist Party) vests ‘peasants and workers’ with a specific right to form different forms of organisations and associations, which may not be curtailed through employment contracts. Importantly, the Draft Constitution (Socialist Party) subjects employers’ ‘freedom of negotiation and organisation in business affairs’ to laws made in ‘social interests’, and mandates the State to assist in establishing educational institutions for workers. These legal provisions can prove significant in addressing inequalities of bargaining power between employers and workers, especially in forms of work where the terms of employment are uncertain. Importantly, the Draft Constitution (Socialist Party) establishes a direct relationship between the State and the ‘tillers of the soil’. Further, it specifically enables appropriate laws to be made to vest them with title over the respective lands.
Such legal precision is valuable in ensuring that workers’ rights are duly and fully recognised when the constitution is interpreted. However, the Constitution of India posited workers’ rights with less specificity as compared to the Draft Constitution (Socialist Party).
The articulation of constitutional rights is only the first step in protecting workers’ interests. The more crucial step is to provide constitutional mechanisms through which the State may be held accountable for its failure to respect or protect these rights. On this count, the Draft Constitution (Socialist Party) provides a much stronger foundation for the realisation of workers’ socio-economic rights. This is because under the Constitution of India, the specific provisions relating to workers’ socio-economic rights fall primarily under the Part IV of the Constitution, titled the ‘Directive Principles of State Policy’. The provisions in Part IV are “…not…enforceable by any court…”, even as the State is bound to apply the ‘principles’ posited in this Part while making laws. This prevents workers or persons representing them to hold the State accountable in Courts for its failures to effectuate workers’ socio-economic rights, atleast in the same manner in which the Courts can enforce the civil-political rights posited under Part III.
Per contra, under the Draft Constitution (Socialist Party), the socio-economic rights of workers have been spread out across the chapters titled the ‘Justiciable Fundamental Rights’ and the ‘Directive Principles of the State Policy’. Further, the Draft Constitution empowers the judiciary to enforce ‘fundamental rights and other provisions of the Constitution’.
Therefore, the Draft Constitution (Socialist Party) encapsulates a more expansive and concrete vision for workers’ rights as compared to the Constitution of India. Further, it empowers the Courts to act as sites for the realisation of this vision, even in the context of socio-economic rights. The constitutional imagination may be valuable in understanding how workers’ rights can be further strengthened under the Indian constitutional framework, especially in forms of work that are marked by significant precarity.