The Karnataka State IT/ITeS Employees Union (KITU) will organise a protest at Freedom Park on Saturday, August 3, to protest the Karnataka government’s proposed increase in the working hours of IT employees.
The protest follows a two-week campaign by KITU, featuring gate gatherings at IT parks and street protests.
The proposed Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments (Amendment) Bill by the state government seeks to establish 14-hour workdays as the norm.
Suhas Adiga, the General Secretary of KITU announced that over 300 IT, ITeS and BPO workers will join the protest at 2 pm.
Denouncing the proposal as “inhuman”, Adiga said that it undermines basic employee rights. “This amendment will shift companies to a two-shift system from the current three-shift one, potentially displacing one-third of the workforce,” he said.
Referencing studies by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO), he cautioned that extended working hours may elevate the risk of stroke-related death by 35 per cent and death from ischemic heart disease by 17 per cent.
Karnataka Labour Minister Santosh Lad has stated that the government is facing pressure from industries to approve the proposal.
Government's proposal on exceeding work hours for employees
The new proposal is called the Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments (Amendment) Bill, 2024.
Currently, the Karnataka Shops and Commercial Establishments Act, 1961, regulates the working conditions and rights of employees in shops and commercial establishments, which includes residential hotels, restaurants, theatres, and IT/ITeS companies.
Presently, Section 7 of the Act recommends that no employee would work for more than nine hours a day and 48 hours a week. The number of hours, including overtime (OT), must not exceed 10 hours a day. As of now, OT hours are limited to 50 hours in three consecutive months.
As per a source, in the proposed amendment, basic working hours will continue to be nine hours a day. The government wanted to change Section 7 to raise the cap on working hours and OT hours together to 12 hours a day and increase OT hours in three months to 125 hours.
Since OT hours cannot breach 125 hours in three months, employees may need to work beyond 10 hours only on certain days.
It is not possible for them to work 12-hour shifts every day, as the set limit ensures such extended shifts are not frequent," the source explained.
Section 10 of the Act says that the working period, including rest intervals, will not exceed 12 hours a day. The Karnataka government wanted to increase this limit to 14 hours.
Interestingly, Karnataka is not the first state to exempt IT/ITeS from the purview of the Shops and Establishments Act.
In states like Gujarat, Telangana and Odisha, all IT, ITES and financial services establishments have already been exempted from the applicability of fixing hours of work, giving employers greater flexibility to determine the working hours of their employees.
The exemption covers various sections pertaining to operating hours, work timings and safety and security, overtime wages and so on.
Moreover, introducing such a drastic change through government policy disrupts established work models. Uncertainty and confusion are likely to arise regarding project deadlines, workload distribution, and compensation for extended hours.
It is expected that forcing compliance through policy changes could stifle innovation and demoralise the workforce.
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