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RESEARCH

The Centre for Advanced Studies in Labour Welfare (CASLW) has undertaken research and field-based work on labour welfare, labour-law implementation, worker awareness and the gap between statutory protections and conditions on the ground. The Centre’s work has combined doctrinal research with field engagement, legal-awareness initiatives, empirical study and academic training. Over the last few years, its major work has included Project Bidesiya, field engagement with organisations working with vulnerable labour, the SHRAMVAAD initiative, a two-credit certificate course on the Labour Codes, and research-oriented publication initiatives dealing with contemporary questions of labour and employment law.

PROJECT BIDESIYA

Project Bidesiya was launched as a flagship initiative of CASLW and focused on the problem of bonded labour and the legal framework governing its abolition. The project was intended to move beyond a purely classroom-based study of bonded labour and to understand the issue through research and field interaction. As part of this broader engagement, members of CASLW also visited Apna Farz Sewa Society to gather information relating to bonded labour and to understand the issue from organisations working directly with vulnerable persons. The work under Project Bidesiya therefore reflected an early attempt by the Centre to connect legal research on labour exploitation with social realities and field-level experience.

SHRAMVAAD

SHRAMVAAD has been the Centre’s most substantial recent empirical research initiative. Developed by CASLW in collaboration with the Punjab State Legal Services Authority, the initiative was conceived as a bridge between labour laws and the workers and small establishments to whom those laws apply. It combined preventive legal support, awareness-building and student-led field outreach. During the field study in Patiala, the research team examined fourteen shops and commercial establishments along with one street vendor. The study used structured interviews, informal conversations, direct observation and, wherever possible, review of workplace records. It examined registration and documentation, working hours, overtime, leave, wage payment, maternity benefits, safety conditions, termination practices, labour inspections, social-security compliance and the position of street vendors under the Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014.

IMPACT

The SHRAMVAAD study brought out a number of recurring implementation concerns. Formal establishments generally showed greater awareness of registration and basic administrative requirements, but display requirements, record-keeping and specific knowledge of statutory provisions were uneven. Long working hours and weak overtime practices emerged as important concerns, while working-hours notices were frequently absent. The research also found that digital wage payment and certain gender-sensitive practices were relatively stronger areas in organised establishments, even though awareness and implementation varied considerably across the sample. Labour inspections were reported to be much less visible than other regulatory inspections, and the street-vendor component of the study indicated serious gaps in awareness and implementation of the Street Vendors Act. The research therefore highlighted that the principal difficulty often lies not in the absence of legislation, but in awareness, enforcement and practical compliance.

RECOMMENDATIONS

CASLW prepared the SHRAMVAAD booklet as an accessible legal-awareness resource and distributed educational material during field visits. The final research report converted the field observations into a detailed set of recommendations addressed to the Labour Department, employers, employees, street vendors, civil-society organisations and legal-aid institutions. These recommendations included stronger and more systematic inspections, bilingual awareness material, better workplace displays and records, clearer overtime and wage documentation, functional grievance mechanisms, improved implementation of the Street Vendors Act, and continued market-level legal-awareness clinics. In this sense, SHRAMVAAD functioned both as an empirical research exercise and as a practical labour-welfare intervention.

CERTIFICATE COURSES

CASLW also conducted a two-credit certificate course on the Labour Codes as part of its academic and research-oriented engagement with contemporary labour-law reform. The course dealt with the four central Labour Codes - the Code on Wages, 2019; the Industrial Relations Code, 2020; the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020; and the Code on Social Security, 2020. It introduced participants to the structure of the new labour-law framework, the relationship between the Codes and the earlier labour statutes, and important questions concerning wages, industrial relations, social security, occupational safety and implementation. The course combined academic instruction with assessment and provided students with a structured understanding of the transition in Indian labour regulation.

PUBLICATIONS

Alongside these projects, the Centre has maintained a research-dissemination component through publications and academic writing on labour welfare and employment law. Its publication history includes the edited volume “Exploitation of Labour: Socio-Legal Aspects” and other CASLW publication initiatives such as Shram and Labour & Liberty. These platforms have been used to engage with questions of labour rights, exploitation, industrial relations, social security and developments in labour and employment regulation. Taken together, the Centre’s work reflects a continuing effort to study labour law not only as a body of statutes and cases, but also as a field shaped by implementation, institutional capacity, worker awareness and changing conditions of work.

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