Equal Wages For Temporary Workers

In a landmark judgment, the Supreme Court has brought a big relief to lakhs of temporary employees working on contractual basis in government departments and agencies. The Supreme Court on Wednesday held that the temporary workers are entitled to be paid wages at par with permanent employees.

The verdict passed by court emphasises on principle of ‘equal pay for equal work’. The bench of Justice JS Khehar and SA Bobde says that the principle of ‘equal pay for equal work’ clearly states that the right vested in every employee is equal whether the employee is permanent or on a contractual basis.

As per Hindustan Times, there was a petition filed by temporary employees working in the state of Punjab seeking wage parity with a regular employee with Punjab and Haryana High Court, but they were denied the pay-scale entitled to a permanent employee. They then moved to Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court verdict read that people do not work willingly on lower wages, but instead, they are compelled to. They are in dire need of jobs to take care of their family so that they can discharge their responsibilities. They do the jobs to provide food and shelter to his family, at the cost of his self-respect and dignity and their family will suffer immensely if they deny the jobs.

The bench said that if an employee is engaged in the same work, he cannot be paid less than another. Be it temporary employee or permanent employee, they both perform the same duties and responsibility.Therefore, there is no doubt that the principle of ‘equal pay for equal work’ should not be applied to all the employees. The pay scale should be similar for all the government employees holding the same post.