MINIMUM WAGES WHO PROTECTS THE EMPLOYER?

摘要

The dictum laid down by the Supreme Court that a minimum wage has to be paid irrespective of the capacity of the employer to pay has been a much flogged bogey from the side of the Government and the employees, but it has lost its sheen and applicability to minimum wage fixation in the case of many a scheduled employment, particularly plantations. This judicial dictum was intended to be understood and applied in the sense, firstly, that the minimum wage is a properly and realistically fixed wage; andsecondly, that the economic condition in the particular schedule employment as a whole is such that it would be able to pay the wage, and that if there are a few odd units here and there, which for peculiar reasons or conditions and which are their own making, might not be able to pay such properly fixed wage, they have no right to remain in the business.