Why in news? The Factories (Karnataka Amendment) Bill, 2023, was adopted in the Legislative Assembly

Highlights:

• It would allow workers to work nine hours a day, 48 hours in a week and work six days in the week.
• The bill allow women to work night shifts at factories, after obtaining written consent from those interested to work on night shifts and ensuring safety measures.
• The State government to extend the total number of hours of work, without an interval, to six hours to any group or class or description of factories to facilitate increase in the daily maximum hours of work.
• The Bill would allow the government to prescribe hours of work in any day or in any week, above which overtime wages at the rate of twice the ordinary wage, is payable to workers.
• The Bill requires employers to provide transport facilities to women workers from residence and back during night shift.
• Each transport vehicle should be equipped with CCTV and GPS.
• Factories should have proper lighting and CCTV coverage whose footage should be stored for not less than 45 days
• The Bill also allows the government to fix work hours for overtime duty during which employees have to be paid wages at the rate of twice the ordinary rate of wages.