The Centre for Labour Studies (CLS) was set up as interdisciplinary Centre aimed at addressing various issues that define regulation and governance in employment relations. The CLS seeks to primarily engage with five key research areas: labour law and regulation; trade unions and collective bargaining; labour law governance in Karnataka; employment relations and structure of industry in select sectors of informal and formal employment, and precarious work and forced labour. In connection with this engagement, the CLS undertakes research, organizes seminars and workshops; and engages with trade unions, labour economists, academicians and the Karnataka Labour Department and other state labour departments on specific workers’ rights issues.

Centre Co-Directors: Dr. Saurabh Bhattacharjee, Vijetha Ravi

Submissions by CLS to the Government:  

• CLS Feedback – Shram Shakti Niti 2025 – National Labour and Employment Policy of India
• Submission on Domestic Workers Bill
• Comments and Recommendation on the Draft Karnataka Platform based Gig workers
• Submission on Platform Work Bill

Projects

1. A Draft Bill for Informal Workers: 
   The Centre has been working on a draft legislation for informal workers with a Working Committee consisting of more than ten trade union leaders belonging to informal sectors from Trivandrum, Chennai, Andhra and Delhi, among others. This Project received initial seed funding from Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO). Consultation Meetings on the Draft Bill have been held at Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai. Sector-specific draft bills are being prepared for regulation of employment in the agriculture sector, fisheries sector, self-employed work sector, and salt plan work sector. Initial consultations have taken place, and preliminary drafts have been discussed for some of these sectors.
2. Projects relating to structure of Employment in food delivery and ride-hailing platforms in India
   The CLS has been engaged in research into the issue of earnings and work intensity in platform work since 2019. The initial research focussed on food delivery work in Karnataka (primarily Bengaluru), and ride-hail work in Hyderabad and three study reports are available. A comic book on conditions of employment in the food delivery platform in Bangalore, based on the research done by CLS is also available. An analysis of algorithmic control of platforms, and the regulatory need to define algorithm role with respect to workplace democracy and privacy, was undertaken in collaboration with the IT for Change, a technology research organization in Bangalore in 2023. The study resulted in a report which is available.The Centre has also been studying the emergence of platform oligopoly and its implications n workers and available alternatives like platform cooperatives and other experiments started with autorickshaw platforms and platform taxis like Namma Yatris. The Centre for Labour Studies, with the support of the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung, completed two reports on the platform economy: the first examining the growing monopolisation of platform companies and its implications for workers’ conditions, and the second analysing how algorithm-driven work shapes and impacts the rights of workers at their workplaces.
3. Work on Universalisation of Social Security
   CLS has carried out consultancy work with Central Social Security Organisations like the Employees Provident Fund Organisation on Universalisation of Social Security schemes.
4. A Draft Bill for Platform-based Gig workers:
   A bill for Gig and Platform workers- The Platform-Based Gig Workers (Conditions of Service and Social Security) Act Bill, 2023-drafted by the CLS was presented to the Labour Minister of Karnataka in 14 September, 2023, addressing social security and conditions of work. Subsequently, the ILO country Director and Head of Social Protection held discussion with CLS before the state level convention on a bill for Gig & Platform workers in consultation with Government of Karnataka. The Draft Bill is being revisited  in view of the recent declaration adopted by the European Union and in view of the preparatory steps now launched by the ILO for adopting a convention on the same subject.
5. South Asia Poverty Report
   The South Asia Poverty Report is a triennial report brought out by the South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE); a Nepal based coalition of civil society organizations. The NLSIU has been associated with the bringing out of the last two editions of the report. The current report, co-edited by Babu P Ramesh of the Ambedkar University Delhi, Akhil Ranjan Datta of Guwahati University and Mohan Mani of CLS, has been released and is available here.
6. Draft Karnataka Labour Policy
   The Government of Karnataka has appointed a tripartite Committee along with two academicians from NLSIU, Babu Mathew and Mohan Mani to prepare a Karnataka Labour Policy. Prof. Babu Mathew is Chairing this Committee. A draft Labour Policy document, and an interim report to the Government of Karanataka is currently underway.
7. Research Consultancy with WIEGO on implementation of Town Vending Committees (TVCs) under India’s 2014 Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending Act.
   The Centre for Labour Studies commenced research consultancy for Women in Informal Employment, Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO)’s Law Programme, examining the implementation of Town Vending Committees (TVCs) under India’s 2014 Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending Act. The consultancy involves conducting literature reviews of the legal framework, comparative analysis of TVC functioning, and assessment of democratic participation mechanisms in workplace decision-making for informal workers. The first phase of this project, a literature review, has been completed in March 2025. In addition, WIEGO commissioned the Centre to prepare a memorandum on the functioning of the TVC in Bhubaneswar, which has also been completed.
8. Collaboration with Nazdeek on Tea Plantation Workers Rights
   The Centre for Labour Studies entered into a partnership with Nazdeek, a women-led organization focused on advancing community justice and legal empowerment in South Asia, to address issues concerning tea plantation workers. As part of this collaboration, the Centre hosted a conference at the National Law School of India University in September 2025, bringing together unions and activists from the sector to establish a Working Group and to deliberate on both immediate research priorities and strategies for advocacy. The Centre is also working on  research report based on the conference discussions and findings.

Completed Projects

1. Garment work research
   CLS was commissioned by the ILO to study the Regulation of Employment in the garment sector in Jordan. The study was completed and report submitted to a tripartite validation workshop in Jordan, and to various arms of the ILO. The report has been published by the ILO. The study was done by Babu Mathew, Mohan Mani and Kavya Bharadkar.CLS with the trade union Garment and Textile Workers Union (GATWU) undertook in 2019 a study of garment workers access to health care and the ESIC in Karnataka. The study including a survey of garment workers’ health care access conducted across Bengaluru and other parts of Karnataka.The ILO commissioned CLS in 2018 to undertake a 2-state study on minimum wage in the garment sector covering Karnataka and the NCR. This study was submitted at a seminar in the CLS, organised jointly by the ILO and CLS. CLS was commissioned in 2017-18 by a Tirupur based NGO, CARET, to look at regulation of employment among women workers in the textile sector in Tirupur.
2. Forced labour
   (i) CLS participated in a 6-country study research done for Equal Rights Trust (for ILAW/ Solidarity Centre) in 2022-23. The study sought to understand informality of work and access to labour protection in India, the UK, South Africa, Brazil, Venezuela and Tunisia.
   (ii) A study was undertaken by CLS for the ILO in 2018 on forced labour in various sectors of employment across the country, and the report was submitted to the ILO.
   (iii) An international seminar was organised by CLS along with Kings College, London on the issue of forced labour and its regulation globally.
3. Drafting the State Rules for the 4 Labour Codes in Chhattisgarh
   CLS was commissioned by the Chhattisgarh Labour Department to draft the State Rules for the 4 Labour Codes in 2020-21. The final report for all four Codes was submitted by mid-2021.