It was in 2002 during the tenure of Shri. Atal Behari Vajpayee that it was envisaged to have four to five codes governing all the provisions under Labour Laws. Vajpayee’s Finance Minister, Shri. Yashwant Sinha had proposed that India’s labor laws be modified. Criticism was widespread, including from within his own party. Eventually, Vajpayee backed off and the promise to amend labor law went unkept.
The Government in 2015 decided to consolidate India’s 44 labour laws into four codes in order to rationalize labour laws and improve ease of doing business. Finance Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman stated in her 2019 Union Budget speech that “This will ensure that process of registration and filing of returns will get standardised and streamlined. With various labour related definitions getting standardised, it is expected that there shall be less dispute.” The Code on Wages is the first of the proposed codes. The other three are the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, the Code on Industrial Relations, and the Code on Social Security.
