Dear friends,

I would like to share the historical judgment of Andhra Pradesh High Court cancelling the Central Government notification on the NREGA wages that are lower than the minimum wages revised by AP State Government. Andhra Pradesh Vyavasaya Vruthidarula Union (APVVU) has filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) with the High Court  of AP Challenging  the central government NRGEA wages notification which is the clear violation of Minimum Wages Act of AP.   Advocate Bala Gopal has argued the case. On 3rd July-09, the High Court has passed the Judgment  in favor to pay minimum wages as per the Minimum Wages revised by AP government.

Details: As per the Minimum Wages Act 1948, the wages has to be revised once in every 3 years, but in practice no state governments in the country revise the wages on time without the workers agitations. Further, there is no historical evidence in Andhra Pradesh that the Minimum Wages Act 1948 is implemented ever for the rural workers (so called unskilled and agricultural workers!). For instance, the government of AP has revised the minimum wages in year 2002. As per the Act, the next revision should have been in the year 2005. After series of campaigns by various mass organizations, it is revised only in the year October, 2008. That means, the rural workers of AP are deprived of the wage increase one time in between 2002 and 2008.

Whenever the wages are increased for rural workers', it is only possible because of the collective efforts of workers' negotiations /agitations locally with the farmers and contractors.  So, as usual, the government of AP has revised the wages in  October 2008 (GO, No 93) but did not have political will to implement even in NREGA program.

APVVU, being a state level federation of agricultural workers unions involved extensively for the implementation of NREGA, challenged the central government notification of minimum wage (Rs. 80) that is lower than minimum wages (Rs. 119  zone 1, Rs 112 for Zone 2&3) of AP.

The High Court of AP  suspended the Central government  Notification of 2009 of January for 8 weeks and asked the Center and State governments to file a fresh affidavits. Mean time the wage should pay  in NREGS according to AP state G.O. 93/ October 17nth of 2008.

Many progressive social legislations and Judgments   will remain paper tigers, if they are not implemented. Therefore, the role of social movements and trade unions is to see  how the workers are organized to actualize the objectives of  Acts like NREGA, Minimum wages Act, Equal Remuneration Act, Land Reform laws, Right to Information Act , SC& ST (prevention of Atrocities) Act, Bonded labor (abolition) Act, Domestic Violence Act and so on. We have many progressive Laws without proper implementation, on the other hand , there are still many repressive Laws exist in the country ,always implemented against the poor and vulnerable......

With Solidarity,
P.S. Ajay Kumar
Secretary
Andhra Pradesh Vyvasaya Vruthidarula Union (APVVU)

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