Unit 4: ILO & social security

Labour welfare includes facilities and services provided to workers for their well-being, beyond wages — inside the workplace (canteens, rest rooms, safety) and outside it (housing, education, recreation). Evolution: from philanthropic efforts by employers to statutory provisions and modern employee well-being programmes. Objectives: improve living and working conditions, raise efficiency and morale, reduce absenteeism and turnover, and build good industrial relations.

Types: statutory (required by law), voluntary (employers' initiative) and mutual (workers' own organisations); intramural (inside the factory) and extramural (outside).

Social security protects workers and their families against contingencies such as sickness, maternity, injury, unemployment, old age and death.

• Social insurance: contributory schemes — ESI, EPF, pension.
• Social assistance: non-contributory, funded by the government — old-age pensions, maternity benefits for the poor.

Indian laws: ESI Act 1948, EPF Act 1952, Maternity Benefit Act 1961, Payment of Gratuity Act 1972 and the Employees' Compensation Act 1923, now consolidated in the Code on Social Security, 2020, which also covers gig and platform workers.

The International Labour Organization (1919, UN agency since 1946) sets international labour standards through conventions and recommendations, promotes decent work and has a unique tripartite structure (governments, employers and workers). India is a founding member. Social audit is an independent review of an organisation's social performance — its impact on employees, community and environment — measured against stated social objectives, and reported to stakeholders.