New Delhi: It is fitting, in a quiet sort of irony, that the Union government chose December 30, 2025 – the penultimate day of the year – to upload the draft rules for the four Labour Codes. While the public was distracted by the turning calendar, the state machinery finalised the dismantling of a century of labour protections. We are told these rules are open for “public consultation” for 45 days. But one must ask what consultation means when the structural changes were already codified in the parent Acts notified in November. To read these draft rules – spanning wages, industrial relations, social security, and occupational safety – is to witness a legal sleight of hand. The government claims these rules will “simplify” compliance and “universalise” security. A closer reading reveals a sophisticated apparatus designed not to protect the worker, but to discipline him, render him docile, and facilitate the extraction of value. The rules do not merely implement the codes; they expand the employer’s power while reducing the state to a data-collector. We are witnessing a fundamental transformation of the Indian state from a flawed mediator of class conflict to an open agent of capital accumulation.How does the government calculate starvation?The draft rules for the Code on Wages, 2019, ostensibly set the parameters for a “floor wage.” Rule 3 defines a standard family as three consumption units requiring 2,700 calories. On the surface, this adheres to the Supreme Court’s 1992 Raptakos Brett guidelines.But there is a catch. The rules create a deceptive gap between the “Floor Wage” and the “Minimum Wage.” While Rule 3 lists the criteria – calories, clothing, rent, fuel, and education – it alters their legal nature. Previously, courts treated these as a “Right to life” under Article 21. The new rules decouple the criteria from the statutory formula. Instead, Rule 4(2) establishes a “technical committee” to “advise” the Union government.Also read: New Labour Codes Erase a Century of Hard-Won Workers’ Rights in One StrokeBy delegating this calculation to a committee of bureaucrats and experts, the rules reduce the wage from a fundamental right to an administrative variable. This delinks wages from the objective reality of inflation and the cost of living, subjecting them instead to the industry’s “capacity to pay”. Hunger is no longer a matter of law; it is a matter of technical advice.Furthermore, Rule 6 retains the eight-hour limit on paper but leaves the “spread-over” – the total time a worker is at the employer’s disposal – to be defined by “order.” Read with the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions (OSH) Code’s overtime waivers, this permits a de facto 12-hour workday. In a country with long commutes, this effectively places half the worker’s life at the employer’s disposal, rendering the concept of leisure or social existence a theoretical luxury.Is it possible to strike legally?The draft rules for the Industrial Relations Code, 2020, offer a masterclass in bureaucratic entrapment. They provide the mechanism for what is effectively the death of the legal strike.Rule 25 (read with Section 62) mandates a 14-day strike notice for all establishments, not just public utilities. Rule 23 states that the moment this notice hits the Conciliation Officer’s desk, conciliation proceedings begin. Under the code, striking during conciliation is illegal. The rules thus operationalise a Kafkaesque loop: to strike legally, you must give notice; but giving notice triggers conciliation and conciliation makes the strike illegal. Since the rules provide no timeline for concluding these proceedings, the state can keep the union in suspended animation indefinitely.The rules regarding trade union recognition (Rule 9) introduce a “Verification Officer” to check membership via “secret ballot” (Rule 9(4)). While “secret ballot” sounds democratic, the employer and the state officer control the voter lists (Rule 9(4)(iv)). The unions are reduced to spectators in their own certification.This cynical view of labour is cemented by Form XXVI, the “Employment Information Return.” Employers must file returns detailing “Manpower Shortages.” The language is instructive: it frames humans not as citizens needing livelihood, but as inventory stock – like coal or steel – that happens to be in short supply. It signals a shift in state priority from ensuring “employment” (a welfare objective) to ensuring “manpower supply” (a corporate objective).Additionally, Rule 2(g) of the Model Standing Orders (Schedule B) institutionalises “Fixed Term Employment.” Employers can hire workers for specific periods for any task, including perennial work, and terminate them without notice or retrenchment compensation when the term ends. This converts the permanent workforce into a perpetual temp-force.Who pays for the gig economy?The draft rules for the Code on Social Security, 2020, introduce the paradox of the “Gig Worker”. Rule 50 demands aggregators like Uber or Zomato contribute 1-2% of turnover to a social security fund. Yet, the rules meticulously avoid calling these workers “employees”.Rule 50(3) constructs a welfare model based on cess, not rights. Benefits depend on the fund’s solvency, not the employer’s liability. More dangerously, Rule 49 makes Aadhaar mandatory for registration. For the migrant worker, whose documentation is often fractured, this digital gatekeeping is a tool of exclusion. The “Shram Suvidha Portal” acts less like a facility and more like a digital cage, allowing the state to track labour movement while absolving employers of provident fund and gratuity obligations.Rule 34 introduces pro-rata Gratuity for fixed-term employees after one year. The government markets this as a benefit. In reality, it subsidises a “hire and fire” regime. It incentivises employers to keep workers on short contracts, paying a small premium to avoid the heavier costs of long-term tenure and seniority (payable after five years).Can safety be bought?The draft rules for the OSH Code, 2020, view worker dignity through a purely transactional lens.Rule 26 mandates a Safety Committee only for establishments with 500 or more workers. This arbitrary threshold ignores the reality that most accidents, chemical leaks, and maimings occur in MSMEs, which employ fewer than 500 people. By excluding these units, the rules leave the most vulnerable workers without institutional oversight.Equally revealing is Rule 55, which operationalises the “Compounding of Offences.” Employers can now pay a fine for safety violations instead of facing prosecution. The state has essentially put a price tag on the worker’s body; a safety violation involving loss of limb or life is no longer a crime, but a cost of doing business, calculable on a balance sheet.Rule 73 allows women to work night shifts provided there is “consent” and CCTV coverage. One must ask: in the feudal-capitalist structure of an Indian factory, where a Dalit woman worker stands before a dominant-caste male supervisor, what does “consent” mean? Is it a choice, or a condition of employment? The State frames this as equality, but it merely outsources safety to surveillance cameras.Perhaps the most insidious change is Rule 78, the “Single License” for contractors. A contractor can now obtain one license to operate across India, stripping local state governments of their monitoring power. A contractor registered in Gujarat can exploit workers in Odisha, and the local inspector is powerless to intervene. This is not federalism; it is the centralisation of impunity.Rule 101 (for Mines) states that workers failing a medical exam are “discharged from service.” Rule 6 mandates annual medical exams for factory, dock, and construction workers over 45. In the hands of a benevolent state, this is welfare. In the hands of a corporate state, it functions as a screening mechanism to weed out “depreciated assets”– workers worn out by toil – and replace them with fresh, younger, cheaper labour without disability compensation.Finally, these draft rules are not administrative trivialities; they are the mechanics of a new order. They replace the “Inspector” with a “Facilitator” (Rule 69), a clear signal that the state’s role is no longer to police violations but to smooth the path of production. They view the worker as a resource to be managed, not a citizen with rights.