RIGHT TO WORK–A LEGAL PERSPECTIVE-WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA

Abstract

The notion of the right to work is not new in India, or indeed in other parts of the world. However, the concept has assumed varying definitions in different Countries. In the United States, for example, the law on Right to Work explicitly gives everyone the opportunity to earn a living wage in a safe work environment and also provides for freedom to organize and bargain collectively. This law does not guarantee that every person will have a job; rather, it means that Governments are required to take effective steps to realize the right over time. States are deemed to violate the right when they either fail to take steps for the protection of this right or when they make the situation worse.

  It is the State's responsibility to secure an equitable income for those who are employed, to care for those incapable of doing any work, and to relieve those who are able to work but are prevented from doing so by economic forces. Among the basic rights is the right to work. This has been recognized since the eighteenth century, when the German thinker Fichte argued that the right to live and the right to work must be protected by the State. Socialist systems recognize the right to work as an obligation; the State may extract the work that is socially and economically useful. For example, the Chinese Constitution of 1982 declares that the right to work is "a glorious duty of every able-bodied citizen." However, because the socialist systems lack strong judiciary, they have not made this right justiciable. It’s native to suppose that the right to work can be guaranteed only in socialistic systems. It is as effectively ensured in several democratic nations, along with programs of insurance for the unemployed. France (1905), Norway (1906), Denmark (1907), Great Britain (1911), Italy (1919), and Canada (1955) have programs providing employment. In the United States, the problems of unemployment are met by the Social Security Act of 1935. The Japanese Constitution makes it obligatory for the State to provide employment. In the Scandinavian countries the unemployment alleviating programs are administered by the trade unions and subsidized by tax revenues.