Minimum Wages and Payment of Wages

Your friend takes a part-time job at a Vashi café, is promised a figure, and at the month-end is handed less because of a “breakage” and a “late-coming fine”. Is that allowed? Can the owner pay whatever the two of them agreed, and can he hold the money back for as long as he likes? The Code on Wages answers all three: there is a floor below which no one may be paid, a clock on when wages must reach you, and a closed list of things that may be cut from them.

In two minutes

The Code on Wages, 2019 fixes a legal floor for pay (minimum wages, with a Central floor wage beneath every State rate), forbids gender discrimination in pay, sets overtime at not less than twice the normal rate, and regulates how, when and with what deductions wages are paid, replacing the Minimum Wages Act 1948, the Payment of Wages Act 1936 and the Equal Remuneration Act 1976.

The rest of this chapter

The full explanation, the cheat sheet, every previous-year question at every mark weight, the quiz and the answer skeletons are part of Labour Law and Industrial Relations – I on LexBlox Semester. Sign in to unlock the subject, or read Module 1 of Legal Language and Writing free.