PIB Exposes Fake Claims On Labour Codes; Slams ‘12-Hour Exploitation’ Narrative

The Press Information Bureau’s Fact Check unit has decisively dismantled a widely circulated video released by CITU Delhi, which alleged that India’s new Labour Codes empower factory owners to impose harsh working conditions, dictate rest breaks, and force employees to remain on premises for 12 hours while compensating them for only eight.

The government responded with clear statutory references, asserting that the claims rest on selective reading, misrepresentation, and deliberate misinformation.

The video, which triggered alarm among worker unions and social media users, accused the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (OSHWC) Code, 2020, of enabling employers to abuse worker spread-over provisions.

PIB Fact Check countered this directly, stating that the law does not allow employers to independently determine rest intervals or manipulate total working hours.

Instead, the Code explicitly grants the central and state governments the authority to prescribe rest periods, daily schedules, and spread-over limits.

Under the OSHWC Code, the total spread-over of a workday can extend to a maximum of 12 hours, but this includes mandatory rest intervals and not merely work time.

The law requires worker consent for extending daily work beyond the standard eight hours, thereby ensuring that no employer can unilaterally stretch operational hours or withhold compensation.

PIB also underscored a key safeguard: all overtime work attracts double wages. The legislation makes it unlawful to engage a worker for extra hours without explicit prior consent and without remunerating those hours at twice the normal rate.

These guardrails, the government argued, were crafted to reduce exploitation, enhance workplace predictability, and strengthen occupational safety.

Fact Check Counters Viral Misinformation

The Fact Check unit described the viral allegations as ‘completely false, misleading, and engineered to create fear among workers’.

Officials urged viewers to rely on government notifications and verified sources to understand the 2020 Labour Codes, which are designed to modernise India’s labour infrastructure while preserving hard-won worker protections.

The government highlighted that the OSHWC Code consolidates 13 previous laws to remove ambiguity, eliminate outdated provisions, and introduce uniform safety standards across sectors.

The restructured framework places strong emphasis on welfare, legal clarity, and enforceability, moving away from the fragmented, compliance-heavy regime of the past.

In its rebuttal, PIB warned that misinformation on labour reforms has become a recurring challenge, often fuelled by partial interpretations or ideologically loaded narratives.

It urged workers, unions, and the public to cross-check viral posts, particularly those that frame statutory provisions inaccurately or exclude essential legal safeguards.

With the clarification now issued, the government reaffirmed that the Labour Codes uphold both worker dignity and employer accountability.

The narrative of ’12-hour unpaid captivity’, it said, collapses entirely when tested against the statutory text.

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