Wages (As Per The New Wage Code)

Background

The Code on Wages, 2019 (“Code”) received assent of the president on September 28, 2020. The Code focuses on simplifying the existing labour laws dealing with payment of wages, overtime, bonus, minimum wages etc. by bringing uniformity in the definition of terms and reducing the burden of filing returns and maintaining the registers under different acts. The Code will subsume four Central labour legislations namely the Payment of Wages Act, 1936, the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965 and the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976. The Code not only regulates the wages of workmen but also the wages of employees performing managerial, supervisory functions.

Along with the Code the government has also introduced three other codes Viz. the Code on Social Security, 2020, The Industrial Relations Code, 2020 and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020.