INDIAN communists have decried “a grave assault on the working class” as labour laws pushed through parliament by the Narendra Modi government attack the right to strike.

Three new “codes” applying to industrial relations, social security and health and safety at work remove job security while imposing “a virtual prohibition on the right to strike,” Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) website People’s Democracy points out.

The code states that employers must be given 60 days’ strike notice (elsewhere it states 14), ban strikes during “conciliation” processes that automatically begin when notice is given, as well as within seven days of the conclusion of “conciliation” processes, as well as during “adjudication” proceedings of up to three months.

“From this confusing welter of clauses, what emerges is that workers cannot go on strike for months after giving notice,” the party says.

A rule that factories with more than 100 workers needed permission from the state government for layoffs or retrenchment has been amended to apply only to businesses with more than 300 workers, ending job security for 70 per cent of industrial establishments in the country, while new short-term contracts that can be indefinitely renewed have been legalised at establishments employing fewer than 50 workers (up from 20).

The CPI-M says the laws have not been properly scrutinised and were rushed through parliament in a “farcical” process similar to the marketisation of Indian agriculture last month.

• Today marked the birthday of Indian independence icon Mahatma Gandhi, and the CPI-M stated that it “remembers Gandhi today. He wanted a secular nation and was killed by the right wing because they saw him as threat to their project. We pledge to fight for his idea of India.”