Over 380 members of the CITU were arrested on Tuesday when they staged dharna at six places in the district demanding the Centre to withdraw the four labour codes.
The protest at Sivakasi was headed by CITU convenor P. Balasubramanian, in which the district secretary P.N. Deva and other leaders, including V.R. Chellasamy and K. Pappa Umanath, took part.
Mr. Balasubramanian said that the Labour Laws that were amended in 2019 were in favour of employers and it would enslave the workers to the employers.
“The workers of small scale industries would be badly affected because of the new codes,” he said.
While the Labour Laws had mandated that any employer having a minimum of 20 workers should provide them ESI and PF benefits. But, now it has been amended that the mandatory benefits of ESI and PF should be extended only when the minimum number of employees was 100, he said.
Similarly, the workers would lose the right to minimum wages and right to issue strike notice.
Besides, the workers could be forced to work for more than 12 hours a day.
Published – December 23, 2025 09:02 pm IST
