Wage As Economic Justice Of Industrial Adjudication

Abstract

Among all the conditions of work, the most important factor to the welfare of workers is wages. Broadly speaking wages have been classified into three categories viz., the minimum, fair and living wages. The National Commission on Labour (NCL) has also observed that the Industrial workers must get at least a minimum wage which should not only be a subsistence wage but “must provide for some measure of education, medical requirements and other similar amenities”.

The most important and probably the most complicated problem in the sphere of labour-management relations is that of wages. Before state regulation the wages were usually determined by the employers in the absence of collective bargaining and workers had to work on those wages.

However, the general problem of wages can be conveniently studies under two subheadings: (a) the amount or quantum of wages, and (b) the tender or payment of wages. Under the first sub-heading may be considered the topic of adequacy of wages and various concepts about the adequacy of wages such as minimum wage, fair wage and living wage. Under the second sub-heading may be considered topics like the mode of payment, the period of payment, the time of payment and deductions from payment of wages.