Employment of Women under the OSH Code

In one line

Women may be employed in every establishment, on every kind of work, and at night, if they consent and the employer meets the prescribed safety conditions.

In exam wording: section 43 of the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code 2020 entitles women to be employed in all establishments for all types of work, and permits their employment before 6 a.m. and beyond 7 p.m. with their consent, subject to such conditions relating to safety, holidays and working hours as the appropriate Government prescribes; and section 44 empowers the appropriate Government to require adequate safeguards before women are employed in a dangerous operation.

Why the law has this at all

Because the old law protected women by excluding them, and exclusion turned out to be the injury.

Under the repealed Acts a woman could not be employed in a factory except between 6 a.m. and 7 p.m.; she could not work below ground in a mine at all; and a list of processes was closed to her. The reasoning was protective. The effect was that whole industries, and every job that ran on a night shift, were closed to half the population, and the better paid shifts were closed even in industries she could enter.

Section 43 reverses that, and the way it is drafted matters. It does not merely permit women to be employed; it says women shall be entitled to be employed in all establishments for all types of work. It is framed as the woman's entitlement, not as a relaxation granted to the employer.

But the section does not simply remove the protection and leave her exposed. It replaces exclusion with three conditions: her consent, the prescribed conditions on safety, holidays and working hours, and, where the work is dangerous, the safeguards the appropriate Government requires under section 44.

That is the shift worth stating in an essay: from protection by prohibition to protection by conditions. Whether it works depends entirely on the conditions actually prescribed, and that is the fair criticism.

Some words this chapter uses

Entitled means having a right, as distinct from being permitted. Consent here means the woman's own agreement to the night work. Dangerous operation is an operation which the appropriate Government considers dangerous to women's health and safety. Safeguards are protective measures required before the employment begins. Hazardous process is defined in section 2(1)(zc) and is dealt with in sections 82 to 88.

Section 43: employment of women

Women shall be entitled to be employed in all establishments for all types of work under this Code, and they may also be employed, with their consent, before 6 a.m. and beyond 7 p.m., subject to such conditions relating to safety, holidays and working hours, or any other condition to be observed by the employer, as may be prescribed by the appropriate Government.