• Thousands of employees working in about 34 different types of private industries in the State can cheer now as the High Court of Karnataka has upheld the government’s notifications issued in 2016 and 2017 increasing the minimum wages in these industries.
• It directed the employers to pay the minimum wages, which remained unpaid till now due to a stay order by the court, to the eligible employees/workers within a period of eight weeks with an interest of 6% per annum from the date from which the revised wages were payable.
• However, the court gave a partial relief to the industries by quashing direction to pay additional allowances like seniority allowance at the rate of 1% of the minimum wages for each completed year of service or otherwise, to the employees who have put in a service of ten or more years; and to continue to pay current wages even if they were above the revised minimum wages, and payment of minimum wages to the supervisory staff who do not prima facie come under the definition of ‘employee’ as per Section 2(e) of the Minimum Wages (MW) Act, 1948.

Types of industries

The new MW applies to industries like automobile engineering (service and repair); shops and establishments, ceramic, stoneware and potteries, foundry, oil mills, printing press, veneer, hostels, hospital and nursing services, private schools, colleges, and other training centres, road construction and maintenance, and building construction, saw mills, spinning mills, pulp paper and card board, areca nut, bakery, biscuit, brick, chemical, cinchona rubber, coffee, tea and mixed plantations, cloth dyeing and printing, confectionery, cotton, crystal cutting, metal rolling and re-rolling ferrous, textile, among others.