Types of labour
Construction labour can broadly divided into two types
[1] Casual labour: Casual labour is employed
as and when required for the execution of work, payment is made on the basis of
the number of days the labour works. There is no provision of leave, except the
weekly holidays. This is also known as daily labour.
[2] Regular Establishment: Regular
establishment generally includes supervisory personal that are required for
more or less continuous period during construction. They are paid monthly wages
and entitled to leave and other benefits. The employees may be temporary or
permanent. Permanent employees have great security of service and may be
entitled to more service benefits than the temporary employees.
Labour welfare-Human relation
Construction is the largest industry in India and most
of the employees who are working in construction industry are labours and
skilled workers. As the nature of construction work is temporary the workers
are recruited as and when required for the execution of work and are retrenched
when no longer needed. Construction labour is migratory in nature, moving from
one site to another site, and the labour attached to big contractors tends to
migrate to new work sites taken up by them. Construction labour has not been
able to organise it self to the extent that labour in factories and other
organised sectors of trade has. This is mainly because the construction labours
do not have a permanent place of work. Consequently construction labour has
extremely poor bargaining power and this situation is fully exploited by
employers. The construction labour beside low wages, they live in crowded
unsanitary temporary huts built at the construction sites in unhygienic
surroundings without basic amenities of life. For the welfare of the labour,
the Governments have, from time to time, brought out labour laws. Labour laws
are classified into the following types.
[1] Laws concerning the working conditions of labour.
[2] Laws concerning wages and other payments to labour. [3] Laws concerning the
social security of labour.
These laws are proved very much helpful to the labour
for improving their living conditions.
Labour Insurance
Insurance laws are applicable only to regular
employees. In construction industry most of the labour is of casual nature and
insurance laws are not applicable to them. For the welfare of casual labour,
different Acts such as Minimum wages Act, Compensation Act etc. are passed by
the Government.