EPFO EO/AO 2023 General Ability Test · Question 67 of 120

Correct — C, (c) The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970. The out-worker exclusion is clause (C) of section 2(1)(i) of that Act, and it is the only one of the four statutes named that carries it. The booklet prints 'out-worker' and 'workman' inside single quotation marks. Section 2(1)(i) defines 'workman' as any person employed in or in connection with the work of any establishment to do any skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled manual, supervisory, technical or clerical work for hire or reward, whether the terms of employment be express or implied — and then excludes three classes: (A) a person employed mainly in a managerial or administrative capacity; (B) a person employed in a supervisory capacity who draws wages exceeding five hundred rupees per mensem or who, by the nature of his duties or the powers vested in him, exercises functions mainly of a managerial nature; and (C) an out-worker. The Act then defines the out-worker in the same clause, and the definition explains why he is left out. An out-worker is 'a person to whom any articles or materials are given out by or on behalf of the principal employer to be made up, cleaned, washed, altered, ornamented, finished, repaired, adapted or otherwise processed for sale for the purposes of the trade or business of the principal employer', where the process is carried out either in the out-worker's own home or in some other premises 'not being premises under the control and management of the principal employer'. That last limb is the point. This Act works by regulating what happens inside an establishment — registration of the principal employer, licensing of the contractor, canteens, rest rooms, drinking water, latrines, first aid, and the principal employer's liability for wages the contractor fails to pay. None of that machinery can operate over work done in somebody's own house. So the person who takes materials home to finish them is excluded from the definition of workman and left outside the Act's scheme altogether. The question is answerable by elimination as well, and the elimination is instructive: two of the other options do not use the word 'workman' at all, and the one that does uses it without this exclusion.

• (a)The Factories Act, 1948 — This Act does not define 'workman' at all; its subject is the 'worker', defined in section 2(l) as a person employed, directly or through any agency including a contractor, with or without the knowledge of the principal employer, whether for remuneration or not, in any manufacturing process, in cleaning machinery or premises used for one, or in work incidental to or connected with the manufacturing process or its subject matter. Its single exclusion is a member of the armed forces of the Union. There is no out-worker clause, and there could not usefully be one: the Act attaches to premises — the factory — rather than to a relationship, so work done at home is outside it by definition rather than by exclusion.
• (b)The Plantations Labour Act, 1951 — Like the Factories Act, this statute is about the 'worker', not the 'workman'. It defines a worker as a person employed in a plantation for hire or reward, whether directly or through any agency, to do any work — skilled, unskilled, manual or clerical — and, since the amendment of 2010, includes a person employed on contract for more than sixty days in a year. Its exclusions are drawn for plantation conditions and begin with a medical officer employed in the plantation. Nothing in it turns on articles being given out to be processed elsewhere, which is a manufacturing and trade idea rather than a plantation one.
• (d)The Inter-State Migrant Workmen (Regulation of Employment and Conditions of Service) Act, 1979 — This is the serious distractor, because this Act does define 'workman' and defines it in almost exactly the words the Contract Labour Act uses — any person employed in or in connection with the work of any establishment to do skilled, semi-skilled or unskilled manual, supervisory, technical or clerical work for hire or reward. The difference is in what follows. Section 2(1)(j) of the 1979 Act excludes only two classes: the person employed mainly in a managerial or administrative capacity, and the person employed in a supervisory capacity drawing wages above five hundred rupees a month or exercising mainly managerial functions. There is no third clause and no out-worker. Two exclusions in the 1979 Act, three in the 1970 Act — and the third is the one the question is about.

Indian labour statutes do not share a single definition of the person they protect, and reading each Act's own definition clause is half the subject. The Factories Act, 1948 and the Plantations Labour Act, 1951 protect the 'worker', a term tied to a place — a factory, a plantation. The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970 and the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979 protect the 'workman', a term tied to a relationship of employment in or in connection with the work of an establishment. Where an Act uses 'workman' it almost always excludes the managerial employee and the well-paid supervisor, because the statute is aimed at those without bargaining power. The Contract Labour Act adds a third exclusion for the out-worker, the person to whom materials are given out to be processed at home or on premises the principal employer does not control — a category that the Act's whole enforcement machinery, built around registration of establishments and licensing of contractors, simply cannot reach. Learning these definitions comparatively rather than one Act at a time is the only efficient way through this part of the syllabus, because the examiner tests them by putting two nearly identical definitions side by side.

This item is characteristic of the EO/AO labour-law block: it names a term of art and asks which statute it belongs to. There is no reasoning route to the answer and no way to bluff it — either the definition clause has been read or it has not. What makes it fair rather than arbitrary is that out-worker is a term with a reason behind it, and a candidate who understands why an Act built on premises and contractors cannot regulate homework will place the exclusion correctly even from a half-memory.

• Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, section 2(1)(i) — 'workman' excludes (A) a person employed mainly in a managerial or administrative capacity, (B) a supervisor drawing wages above five hundred rupees a month or exercising mainly managerial functions, and (C) an out-worker.
• The same clause defines the out-worker as a person given articles or materials by or on behalf of the principal employer to be made up, cleaned, altered, finished, repaired or otherwise processed for sale, the process being carried out at his home or on premises not under the principal employer's control and management.
• Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979, section 2(1)(j) — 'workman' carries only two exclusions, managerial or administrative and supervisory, and no out-worker clause.
• Factories Act, 1948, section 2(l) — defines 'worker', not 'workman', excluding only a member of the armed forces of the Union.
• Plantations Labour Act, 1951 — defines 'worker'; since the amendment of 2010 it includes a person employed on contract for more than sixty days in a year, and excludes among others a medical officer employed in the plantation.
• Contract Labour Act, section 2(1)(a) — a workman is deemed to be employed as contract labour when he is hired in or in connection with the work of an establishment by or through a contractor, with or without the knowledge of the principal employer.
• Both the Contract Labour Act, 1970 and the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979 are among the thirteen Acts subsumed by the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code, 2020.

• Assuming every labour statute uses 'workman'. The Factories Act and the Plantations Labour Act use 'worker', and that alone eliminates two options.
• Treating the 1970 and 1979 definitions as identical because they open identically. The 1970 Act has three exclusions, the 1979 Act two.
• Reading 'out-worker' as an outdoor worker or a field worker. It means a person who processes the employer's materials off the employer's premises, usually at home.
• Forgetting that the supervisory exclusion has a wage figure attached — five hundred rupees per mensem — which the examiner can ask for on its own.

Definition clauses are the most heavily worked seam in the EO/AO labour-law block, and the question is nearly always 'which Act says this?' rather than 'what does this mean?'. Build a single comparison table of worker, workman, employee and wages across the Factories Act, the Plantations Labour Act, the Contract Labour Act, the Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, the Payment of Wages Act and the Industrial Disputes Act, and this whole family becomes a lookup.

No directly related past PYQ was found.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Under the Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970, a person employed in a supervisory capacity is excluded from the definition of 'workman' if he draws wages exceeding :

  • (a)₹ 250 per mensem
  • (b)₹ 500 per mensem
  • (c)₹ 1,600 per mensem
  • (d)₹ 10,000 per mensem

  Answer(b) ₹ 500 per mensem

• practice — not a real PYQ

  Which one of the following legislations uses the expression 'worker' rather than 'workman' in its definition clause ?

  • (a)The Contract Labour (Regulation and Abolition) Act, 1970
  • (b)The Inter-State Migrant Workmen Act, 1979
  • (c)The Factories Act, 1948
  • (d)The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947

  Answer(c) The Factories Act, 1948