Centre pushes for 12-hour work as tycoons call for 70-90 hour workweeks

The Centre on Friday (November 21) declared that the long-pending four labour codes will come into force with immediate effect. These codes include Code on Wages of 2019, Industrial Relations Code of 2020, Code on Social Security of 2020 and Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code of 2020.

The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code of 2020 is of particular interest in the context of Infosys founder Narayana Murthy’s recent call for adopting China’s ‘996’ work culture (9 am to 9 pm, six days a week) or a 72-hour work week in a series of TV interviews.

Also Read: Narayana Murthy renews call for 72-hour work week, cites China’s 9-9-6 model

While the Code itself talks of 8-hour work days and unspecified “spread overs” (as may be notified later), its draft rules provide for a “spread over” time of 12 hours. Fortunately, the cap on the 48-hour week has remained unchanged. But things may change from now.

70-90 hour work week sought

Narayana Murthy had, in fact, upped the ante on his own advocacy of a 70-hour work week in 2023 in his recent TV interviews. Many others supported him.

In January, L&T chairman SN Subrahmanyan’s video went viral in which he was advocating for a 90-hour work week. In April, RPG Group chairman Harsh Goenka supported Narayana Murthy and Subrahmanyan. Earlier, JSW Group chairman Sajjan Jindal and Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal had supported Narayana Murthy. And when Karnataka brought a new law in 2023 extending working hours up to 12 hours, it was attributed to the iPhone maker Apple and its manufacturing partner Foxconn.

Tycoons overlook labour economics

Narayana Murthy and others's call for 70-90 hours of work per week is eerily similar to the support that China’s richest man Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce platform Alibaba, which uses the ‘996’ work culture, called it “a huge blessing” in 2019. In 2021, his rival Richard Liu, founder of the JD.com Inc., called those who followed this work schedule his “brothers”.

A recent study by the universities of China and Australia called ‘996’ a “modern slavery” and Ma and Liu’s support a “persistence of exploitative labour practices” contributing to this slavery. Several studies have shown that this model, which the Chinese government and its apex court declared illegal in August 2021, was hurting workers and companies by lowering productivity, innovation, competitiveness and wages.

Also Read: Infosys urges employees not to work longer hours, ensure work-life balance

That is not surprising. The world has known and legislated against overwork for over 100 years.

The very first International Labour Organization (ILO) convention of 1919 had adopted 8-hour work day and 48-hour work week as “normal” in factories, which was then extended to commerce and offices at the ILO’s 30th convention in 1930.

Overworked Indian workers

Until November 21, Indian labour law limited work to 8 hours a day and 48 hours a week, but that has been fast changing with several states extending the working day from 8 to 12 hours, although the weekly cap remains at 48 hours.

This is despite the ILO reports since 2022 showing that Indian workers are overworked and stressed. The last time it made headlines was in September 2024, when headlines screamed Stressed and overworked: 51 per cent of Indian employees work over 49 hours in a week , India among top overworked nations, 51 percent employees work 49+ hours a week.

Indian workers average 46.7 hours a week and despite China’s ‘996’ work culture, its average was 46.1 hours.

What does long working hours imply?

An ILO study of 2024 on the Chinese ‘996’ work culture was clear that it was “insufficient wages” and “lack” of protections and benefits that forced Chinese workers to work long hours to “meet basic living needs”.

Its 2022 report said, “In developing and emerging economies (like India), such long hours of work are driven mainly by low hourly wages and/or a desire to maximise earnings (whether these are wages or income from self-employment), which means that workers often need to work long hours just to make ends meet.” Here, long working hours mean over 8 hours a day and 48 hours a week.

Centre's nudge to extend daily work hours

Extending working hours began in India after the pandemic hit in 2020. By May-June 2020, at least 12 states had issued temporary notifications raising daily and weekly work hours citing labour shortage and economic recovery.

The Centre passed its Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (OSH) Code and published draft rules during the pandemic lockdowns, extending 8-hour work to a 12- hour spread-over but kept the weekly cap at 48 hours.

Also Read: L&T defends Chairman's 90-hour workweek comment; what rulebook says

Given the strong protest, the Centre didn’t enforce any of the four codes, but instead it persuaded states to change their laws to extend working hours.

Several states did so under the Factories Act and Shops and Establishments Act, including Gujarat , Karnataka, Telangana (shops and establishments only), Andhra Pradesh , Maharashtra and Rajasthan; Delhi already has 9-hour work and it increased its spread-over time to 12 hours. Tamil Nadu did make a move in 2023 but withdrew it.

Interestingly, KN Umesh, national secretary of trade union CITU, says no state or employer has implemented the legislative changes introduced by the state government, fearing severe backlash from workers.

Now, post the notification of the Centre’s four labour codes and rules, all states would change theirs to be compliant. All these are happening in the backdrop of growing distress in the workforce.

Low wages and social security

• The PLFS reports show that 90 per cent of workers are in informal and low-paid jobs, reverse migration has raised low-paying agriculture jobs's share to 46.1 per cent and vulnerable self-employment to 58.4 per cent in 2023-24.
• This is when the Economic Survey of 2023-24 said India Inc. was “swimming in excess profits”; Chief Economic Advisor Ananth V Nageswaran slammed it for “creeping informalisation” and stagnant wages.
• The Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) of 2023-24 shows contractual work rising to a 27-year high of 42 per cent in organised manufacturing in 2023-24.
• The ASUSE surveys show that informally hired workers in unincorporated establishments went up from 88 per cent in 2021-22 to 94 per cent in 2023-24.
• Despite corporate tax cuts and incentives like the PLD, DLI and ELI schemes, formal jobs (“net payroll”) fell from 13.9 million in FY23 to 13 million in FY25.
• The SBI Research shows that real wage growth fell to near zero per cent in FY26. It had fallen to below zero percent during FY19-FY24, before rising to around 1 per cent in FY25.
• Millions of Indian youths are trapped in extremely low-paying gig work, which is set to rise to 23.5 million by 2030.
• Rising poverty has forced Central and state governments to give “free” ration to 813.5 million (58 per cent) Indians a month, 16 states are now giving cash handouts to women, about 100 million farmers are given Rs 6,000 under the PM-KISAN and another 100 million women receive subsidised LPG cylinders.

Quality jobs are shrinking despite historic profits by India Inc; wages and social security are going down, from abysmally low levels, and most Indians are forced to live on freebies.

It is in this backdrop that Indian elites are asking for 70-90 hours of weekly work.

With the notification of the four new labour codes, at least daily work will go up to 12 hours with immediate effect, if not the 48-hour weekly cap.