The RSS-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) on Monday lamented that the Indian Labour Conference (ILC) has not met since 2015 while the country is confronted with burning issues like job loss and marginalisation of women workers.

The ILC is the apex tripartite body comprising representatives of employees, employers and the government to discuss emerging labour issues in the country and advise the government on such issues. All the 12 central trade unions are members of the ILC which has been meeting every year since 1942 except breaks in some years. The last meeting was held in 2015.

BMS general secretary Binoy Kumar Sinha has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi urging to take steps to hold the ILC at the earliest “to uphold the noble tradition of tripartism in the country”.

The letter said India being a founding member of the International Labour Organisation, the labour arm of United Nations, has traditionally upheld the high ideals of tripartism. The Indian Parliament has ratified the ILO Convention related to strengthening tripartite mechanism. The ILC has been meeting since 1942. In 1957, the ILC laid down the scientific criteria for fixing minimum wages, it said.

From 1997, the Prime Minister has been attending the inaugural event of the ILC. Modi had attended the event in 2015.

“For various reasons, for the last 6 years, ILC was not held, while the country was confronted with many burning issues related to labour. Today several burning issues like that of migrant workers, labour law reforms, informal sector workers, contract workers in the formal sector, loss of jobs and wage reduction during the pandemic, social security, increasing marginalisation of women workers, etc, are all matters of high concern for the workers in India,” Sinha wrote.

“Hence, we would like to request you to take steps to convene the ILC at the earliest, honouring it with your presence...,” he wrote.

Pawan Kumar, north zone secretary of the BMS, said that the Prime Minister listens to workers to get feedback from working class. “Where shall the workers go to raise their issues if the ILC is not held? The PM should honour the tripartite mechanism,” Kumar said.

He said the BMS recently held protests in Haryana, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh over the burning issues like lack of social security for workers, delay in implementation of wage and social security law and delay in implementing a database for migrant workers.