Page 83 - DMGT516_LABOUR_LEGISLATIONS

Labour Legislations

Notes 4.1.2 Concepts and Defi nitions

1. Contract Labour: Under Section 2(2)(b) of the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition)
Act, 1970, ‘a workman shall be deemed to be employed as “contract labour” in or in
connection with the work of an establishment when he is hired in or in connection with
such work by or through a contractor, with or without the knowledge of the principal
employer’.

Broadly-speaking, therefore, contract labours are persons (i) employed or engaged;
(ii) in or in connection with the work, of any establishment or manufacturing process;

(iii) through contractor. If these conditions are satisfied, it is immaterial whether the
workman was employed with or without the consent of the principal employer.
2. Contractor: Section 2(c) defines “contractor” in relation to establishment to mean:

“a person who undertakes to produce a given result for the establishment, other than a
mere supply of goods or articles of manufacture to such establishment, through contract
labour or who supplies contract labour for any work of the establishment and includes a

sub-contractor; (i) any office or department of the Government or (ii) any place where any
industry, trade, business, manufacture or occupation is carried on”.
3. Principal Employer: Section 2(g) defines “principal employer” to mean:

(a) in relation to any office or department of the Government or a local authority, the

head of that office or department or such other officer as the government or the local

authority, as the case may be, may specify in this behalf,
(i) in a factory, the owner or occupier of the factory and where a person has been
named as the manager of the factory under the Factories Act, 1948, the person
so named,
(ii) in a mine, the owner or agent of the mine and where a person has been named
as the manager of the mine, the person so named,
(iii) in any other establishment, any person responsible for the supervision and
control of the establishment.

(iv) Workmen

Section 2 (i) defines ‘workmen’ to mean:
“any person employed in or in connection with the work of any establishment to do any skilled,
semi-skilled or unskilled manual, supervisory, technical or clerical work for hire or reward,
whether the terms of employment are expressed or implied but does not include any such
person: (a) who is employed mainly in a managerial or administrative capacity; or (b) who, being

employed in a supervisory capacity, draws wages exceeding five hundred rupees per mensem
or exercises, either by the nature of the duties attached to the offi ce or by reason of the powers
vested in him, functions mainly of a managerial nature; or (c) who is an out-worker, that is to say,
a person to whom articles or materials are given out by or on behalf of the principal employer

to be made up, cleaned, washed, altered, ornamented, finished, repaired, adapted or otherwise
processed for sale for the purposes of the trade or business of the principal employer and the
process is to be carried out either in the home of the out-worker or in some other premises, not
being premises under the control and management, of the principal employer.”

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