Four Labour Codes Explained

In October 2025, a 250-worker textile mill in southern India operated under sixteen separate central labour Acts at the same time. The Factories Act, 1948 governed the building, the machinery, the worker registration, the safety drills, and the annual returns. Wage registers and deduction rules ran under the Payment of Wages Act, 1936. The floor wage rate was set under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948. Bonus arithmetic ran under the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965; equal pay under the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976; long-service settlements under the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972. The certified standing orders ran under the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946. Lay-offs, retrenchments, and closure ran under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947. Union recognition ran under the Trade Unions Act, 1926. Contract workers were licensed under the Contract Labour Act, 1970. Migrants from other states sat under the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979. The EPF Act, 1952 and the ESI Act, 1948 carried the long-term benefits. Maternity leave ran under the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961. Workplace-injury claims sat under the Employees' Compensation Act, 1923. The Apprentices Act, 1961 governed the mill's apprentice intake; alone among the sixteen, it was not subsumed by any of the four Codes and continues to run on its own footing today.

Sixteen Acts, sixteen registers, sixteen sets of returns, sixteen inspector regimes, all running side by side on the floor of one mill.

By the morning of 22 November 2025, the same mill ran on four. The shelf in the compliance officer's room was physically the same; the binders still sat on it; the registers were still being updated. The substantive obligations had moved. A wage register that had run under Section 13A of the Payment of Wages Act, 1936 now ran under Section 50 of the Code on Wages. The certified standing orders of the 1946 Act now carried the same content under Sections 28 to 39 of the IR Code. A factory-registration certificate issued under the Factories Act, 1948 now sat as a single establishment registration under Section 3 of the OSH Code. The map is what changed.

For an HR manager who ran the older regime out of memory, the work after 21 November 2025 starts with re-mapping. A salary restructuring used to mean opening the Payment of Wages Act, the certified Standing Orders, and the Industrial Disputes Act for the 21-day notice. After 21 November 2025, it means Section 2(y) of the Code on Wages for the recomputed wages and Section 40 of the IR Code for the notice. A new hire used to mean the Factories Act for registration and the EPF Act for enrolment. After 21 November 2025, it means Section 6(1)(f) of the OSH Code for the appointment letter and Chapter III of the Code on Social Security for the PF.

The question every HR team is now answering, sometimes consciously and sometimes without realising, is which Code owns which question. This article walks through that map and shows how the four Codes operate together on a single hire.

This reference reappears in the four Code-specific articles that follow, where each Code is taken apart in detail.

The Codes were drafted to do two things at once. Worker protection was meant to widen: a universal minimum-wage floor in place of the older "scheduled employments" patchwork, formal coverage for gig and platform workers for the first time in Indian law, a broader maternity benefit, and a substantially aligned definition of wages across all four Codes that closes the long-running practice of holding basic pay artificially low. Compliance friction was meant to ease: one largely common wages definition (see The 50% Wage Rule), single establishment registration, a common licence under Section 119 of the OSH Code for multi-activity employers, electronic filings, and threshold relief at several points (Standing Orders applicability rises from 100 to 300 workers under Section 28(1) of the IR Code).

The four Codes are organised so that each one owns one part of the employment relationship. Pay sits in the Code on Wages. The collective relationship sits in the IR Code. Workplace conditions sit in the OSH Code. Long-term benefits sit in the Code on Social Security. Map the four parts to the four Codes once, and almost any HR question routes to the right Code without looking at the section.

The Code on Wages governs how much you pay, how often, by what means, with what protections against gender discrimination, and how much of what you owe at exit can be deducted before payment. It replaces four older Acts: the Payment of Wages Act, 1936, the Minimum Wages Act, 1948, the Payment of Bonus Act, 1965, and the Equal Remuneration Act, 1976.

The Wage Code's smallest trigger is no trigger at all. Chapters II (minimum wages) and III (payment of wages) apply to every employee in every establishment, irrespective of headcount. The breadth flows from Section 1(2) (which extends the Code to the whole of India) read with the broad definitions of "employee" in Section 2(k), "employer" in Section 2(l), and "establishment" in Section 2(m). Chapter IV (bonus) applies at twenty or more persons under Section 41(2). Section 50(4) exempts very small employers (five or fewer in agriculture or domestic work) from the register and wage-slip obligations.

Section 2(y) of the Code on Wages, with parallel provisions at Section 2(zq) of the IR Code, Section 2(1)(zzj) of the OSH Code, and Section 2(88) of the Code on Social Security, has reset payroll arithmetic for almost every mid-sized and large employer in India. The definition holds three components in (basic, dearness allowance, retaining allowance) and lists items out, the first nine of which are subject to a 50% test. Where the items in the excluded basket together exceed half of total monthly remuneration, the excess is pulled back and treated as wages. PF, gratuity, bonus, and retrenchment compensation all compute on the recomputed number. The 50% Wage Rule takes the arithmetic apart on a worked salary.

The Wage Code also carries the universal floor for minimum wage compliance under Section 5, the two-working-day exit dues rule under Section 17(2), the 2× overtime rate under Section 14, the 50% cap on payroll deductions under Section 18(3), and the statutory bonus arithmetic under Section 26 (8 and 1/3 per cent floor, twenty per cent ceiling). Code on Wages 2019 Guide takes each of these into operation.

The Industrial Relations Code governs the collective relationship: who can register as a union, who can be recognised as the sole negotiating union, who must be consulted before a salary or shift change, and what is owed when the relationship ends. It replaces three older Acts: the Trade Unions Act, 1926, the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, and the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.

The IR Code counts workers, not employees. A senior manager on the company's payroll is an employee for the Code on Wages and the Code on Social Security but not a worker for the IR Code. The IR Code's three threshold rungs hang on the worker count: a Grievance Redressal Committee at 20 workers under Section 4, a Works Committee at 100 workers (on government direction) under Section 3, and Standing Orders at 300 workers under Section 28(1). The Standing Orders threshold has risen from 100 to 300 in central law. Firms between 100 and 299 workers no longer have to maintain certified Standing Orders. (Several states had already raised the workforce threshold to 300 well before the Code, but those state amendments were almost entirely to the lay-off, retrenchment, and closure thresholds under the older Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, not to the Standing Orders Act 1946. The 100-to-300 jump for Standing Orders applicability happened only with the IR Code 2020.)

The IR Code introduces a single negotiating union rule at Section 14(3): where a registered union commands 51% or more of worker support on the muster roll, that union is recognised as the sole negotiating union. Where no single union commands 51%, a negotiating council is constituted with one representative per 20% slab of muster-roll support under Section 14(4). Recognition runs three years, extendable by mutual agreement to a total of five years under Section 14(6).

Two further IR Code obligations sit at the centre of mid-sized HR work. Section 40 requires a 21-day notice before any change in service conditions listed in the Third Schedule. The Third Schedule covers eleven categories, including wages and the wage period, employer contribution to provident or pension funds, hours of work and rest intervals, leave and holidays, shift introduction or alteration, and changes in headcount in a particular occupation. Most salary restructuring and most shift changes sit inside the Schedule, and the 21-day clock is a statutory precondition that has to run before the change takes effect. Section 83 creates the Workers' Re-Skilling Fund: on every retrenchment from 21 November 2025, the company contributes 15 days of the worker's last-drawn wages to the Fund, separate from and in addition to the retrenchment compensation under Section 70(b). The Fund's collection mechanics sit in the held-back layer of the rollout (see India's New Labour Code 2026); the liability itself is live from 21 November 2025. Industrial Relations Code 2020 Guide takes the IR Code into operation.

The Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code governs the workplace itself: the building, the machinery, the welfare facility, the annual health check, the working hours, the leave entitlement, the contract worker on premises, and the migrant worker from another state. It is the largest of the four Codes by scope, replacing thirteen older Acts: the Factories Act, 1948, the Plantations Labour Act, 1951, the Mines Act, 1952, the Working Journalists Acts of 1955 and 1958, the Motor Transport Workers Act, 1961, the Beedi and Cigar Workers Act, 1966, the Contract Labour Act, 1970, the Sales Promotion Employees Act, 1976, the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979, the Cine-Workers and Cinema Theatre Workers Act, 1981, the Dock Workers (Safety) Act, 1986, and the Building and Other Construction Workers Act, 1996.

The OSH Code's smallest trigger is the registration threshold at Section 3. Every establishment with 10 or more workers must register electronically within 60 days of crossing the threshold. Factories follow the Section 2(w) definition (20 with power, 40 without). Mines, ports, and dock work register without a numerical threshold. The OSH Code carries the appointment letter duty for every new hire under Section 6(1)(f), the annual health check-up obligation for prescribed classes of employees under Section 6(1)(c), the hazard-free-workplace duty at Section 23, the welfare facility ladder at Section 24 (rest rooms at 50 workers, canteen at 100, welfare officer at 250 in factories, mines, and plantations, ambulance room at 500 in factories, mines, and construction sites), and the leave-with-wages provisions at Section 32 (one day of leave for every 20 days worked, with a qualifying threshold of 180 days in the calendar year, down from 240 under the older Factories Act).

The OSH Code centralises the contract labour chain at Sections 45 to 58, with the contract labour Part now applying to engagements of 50 or more contract workers in the preceding 12 months (raised from 20 under the older Contract Labour Act, 1970). Inter-state migrant worker protection sits in Sections 59 to 65, including a yearly journey allowance and PDS portability. Three separate notification obligations follow when something goes wrong on the floor: accident under Section 10, dangerous occurrence under Section 11, and any of the 29 notifiable diseases listed in the Third Schedule under Section 12. A single event may trigger one, two, or all three of those notifications, and forms and timelines differ across the three. OSH Code 2020 Compliance Guide takes the OSH Code into operation.

The Code on Social Security covers what happens after work hours: the provident fund and the state insurance running through the working years, the gratuity at exit, the maternity benefit between, the compensation when an injury or death takes the worker out of work, the welfare cess on construction projects, and the new coverage for gig and platform workers who never had a statutory framework before. It replaces nine older Acts: the Employees' Compensation Act, 1923, the Employees' State Insurance Act, 1948, the Employees' Provident Funds Act, 1952, the Employment Exchanges Act, 1959, the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961, the Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972, the Cine-Workers Welfare Fund Act, 1981, the Building and Other Construction Workers' Welfare Cess Act, 1996, and the Unorganised Workers' Social Security Act, 2008. Eight of the nine have been operatively repealed; the ninth, the EPF Act, 1952, has not. Item 3 of Section 164(1) of the Code on Social Security, which lists the EPF Act for repeal, was expressly excluded from S.O. 5319(E)'s commencement. The existing EPFO contribution architecture continues unchanged under the saved notifications.

The Code on Social Security is the only one of the four whose applicability is chapter-specific. An establishment may be covered under some chapters and not others. The chapter map runs from Chapter III to Chapter IX. Provident fund sits in Chapter III (Sections 14 to 23) at 20 employees under Section 1(4) read with the First Schedule. Employees' state insurance sits in Chapter IV at 10 persons, with individual coverage limited to employees earning within the wage ceiling notified by the Central Government (the older ESI Act ceiling of ₹21,000 per month, currently saved under Section 164(2)). Gratuity at Chapter V pays 15 days per completed year under Section 53, with five years' continuous service required for permanent employees and pro-rata payment for fixed-term employees on contract expiry. Maternity benefit at Chapter VI carries 26 weeks of paid leave for natural birth under Section 60(3) and twelve weeks for adoptive and commissioning mothers under Section 60(4). The Supreme Court read-down in Hamsaanandini Nanduri v. Union of India, 2026 INSC 246, dated 17 March 2026, struck down the "below age of three months" restriction in Section 60(4) as violative of Articles 14 and 21, entitling every adoptive or commissioning mother to twelve weeks' benefit from the date the child is handed over, regardless of the child's age. Employees' compensation at Chapter VII applies wherever ESI does not. The building and construction welfare cess sits in Chapter VIII. Chapter IX brings unorganised, gig, and platform workers into formal coverage for the first time.

The new architecture sits across Sections 109 to 114, with the operational core at Sections 112 to 114 (helpline and facilitation, registration of unorganised, gig, and platform workers, and the aggregator contribution machinery). Aggregator contributions of 1% to 2% of annual turnover, capped at 5% of the amount payable to gig and platform workers, sit at Section 114(4); the nine aggregator categories are listed in the Seventh Schedule. The specific rate within the band and the commencement date are pending separate notification under Section 114(5); the liability framework is live. Code on Social Security 2020 takes the Code on Social Security into operation.

Take a weaver hired on Friday, 1 May 2026, at the same 250-worker textile mill from the opening. By 5 PM that day, the four Codes have already touched her file in different places and at different sections.

By 10 AM the appointment letter under Section 6(1)(f) of the OSH Code is signed and handed over. By 11 AM her UAN is generated for the Provident Fund under Chapter III of the Code on Social Security, and her ESI registration follows under Chapter IV because she earns within the ESI wage ceiling and the mill is well above both the PF threshold (20 employees) and the ESI threshold (10 persons). The wage period is fixed in writing in the appointment letter under Section 16 of the Code on Wages, and her overtime rate under Section 14 of the same Code is at least twice the normal rate from the first overtime hour she works. By the end of the day, the IR Code has not asked her for anything fresh, but the Grievance Redressal Committee under Section 4, in place at the mill, sits ready as the body she would approach if she had a workplace grievance later.

Through the year, the four Codes work in cadences. Leave accrues under Section 32 of the OSH Code as her days worked cross 180 in the calendar year, or one-quarter of remaining days for a mid-year joiner; she joined on 1 May 2026, so her threshold is roughly 62 days, crossed by mid-July. Statutory bonus runs on her days worked in each accounting year (1 April to 31 March) under Sections 26 and 41(2) of the Code on Wages. Gratuity continuous service ticks up under Section 53 of the Code on Social Security, where eligibility crystallises at five years for a permanent employee.

If the weaver is later retrenched, all four Codes act at once. Under chapter IX of the IR Code, notice runs at one month under Section 70(a); under chapter X (300 workers and above), notice runs at three months. Retrenchment compensation under Section 70(b) is 15 days' average pay per completed year of service. Section 83 adds a Re-Skilling Fund contribution at 15 days' last-drawn wages, separate from and in addition to the Section 70(b) compensation. Two working days is the Code on Wages exit dues window under Section 17(2). Gratuity, where eligible, runs to 30 days under Section 56(3) of the Code on Social Security.

One hire, one payslip, four Codes, each asking for something at a different point in the relationship. The HR team that runs the four Codes through one workflow handles each obligation at the right time, on a single compliance calendar that strings every duty across the year.

A question lands on the HR desk on Friday afternoon: the weaver's supervisor has asked whether her shift can change from a 10 AM to 7 PM day shift to a 2 PM to 11 PM evening shift, starting next month. The HR officer who runs the question through the two-step test reaches the answer in under a minute.

Step one: identify the topic. The change is a shift-timing change, which sits in the IR Code's Third Schedule. The schedule lists eleven categories of changes that require a 21-day notice under Section 40, and item 6 reads "Starting, alteration or discontinuance of shift working otherwise than in accordance with standing orders". Pay structure has not changed, so the Code on Wages is silent. PF, ESI, gratuity, and maternity have not been touched, so the Code on Social Security is silent. The proposed shift runs past 7 PM, which brings in the OSH Code's Section 43 conditions on women working between 7 PM and 6 AM.

Step two: go to the Code that owns the topic. The HR officer issues a 21-day notice under Section 40 of the IR Code, gathers the weaver's written consent under the OSH Code's Section 43, and arranges documented transport home and back to a safe drop point as the section also requires. That same question, run through all four Codes one at a time, takes a Friday afternoon; the two-step test reaches the answer in a single email.

Pay sits in the Code on Wages. Anything involving unions, grievances, or retrenchment is an IR Code question. Workplace conditions, registration, contract labour, and migrant workers are OSH Code matters. Long-term benefits like PF, ESI, gratuity, maternity, and gig and platform coverage belong to the Code on Social Security. Questions that span more than one Code (a salary restructuring is a Wage Code question and an IR Code question because of the 21-day Third Schedule notice; a contract labour engagement is an OSH Code question for the chain of liability and a Code on Social Security question for PF and ESI) get handled in both Codes, in parallel, on the same desk.

A note on cross-Code section numbers. Four Codes have a Section 53, each covering a different subject. The Code on Social Security places gratuity at Section 53; the OSH Code's principal-employer welfare provision sits at Section 53. Always carry the Code name when citing a section in conversation, in email, or in a memorandum: "Section 53 of the Code on Social Security" rather than "Section 53." The series uses this convention throughout.

Every threshold in the four Codes turns on a single distinction the older Acts did not draw cleanly. The IR Code and the OSH Code count workers. The Code on Wages and the Code on Social Security count employees. Employee vs Worker: Labour Codes explains why the same payroll spreadsheet produces different headcounts under different Codes, and what that does to a thirty-person company that thought it had thirty workers.