Himachal Pradesh Govt. revises conditions for employing women during night shifts (between 7:00 pm and 6:00 am) in factories
The Government of Himachal Pradesh has revised the conditions prescribed in respect of safety and security measures for factories intending to apply for exemption (under the provisions of the Factories Act, 1948) on employing women during night shifts i.e., between the hours of 7:00 pm to 6:00 am. The prescribed conditions are in supersession of earlier Notifications in this regard and such exemption will be valid for three calendar years.
Key compliance obligations:
• Obtain consent from a woman employee for any work before 6:00 am or after 7:00 pm and ensure that her total working hours does not exceed 8 hours a day or 48 hours a week;
• Provide safe, secure and healthy working conditions to ensure that no woman employee is deprived in connection with her employment;
• Provide adequate transportation facilities along with guard to women employees for pick up and drop at her residence and ensure sufficient supervision during the working hours and journey of such women employees. In case, boarding and lodging arrangements are provided for the women employees, maintain the same exclusively for women under the supervision of women wardens or supervisors;
• Comply with the provisions of the Sexual Harassment of Women at workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013;
• Do not engage woman employees against the provisions prescribed under the Maternity Benefit Act, 1961;
• Provide adequate lighting at the entry and exit for women employees, the surroundings of the establishments and all places where the women employees may move as per necessity in the course of her shift and ensure that the toilets, washroom and drinking water facilities are near the workplace including the passage for convenience of access to these amenities;
• Provide appropriate medical facilities and ensure that necessary telephone connections are provided and made available at any time of urgency. Also, keep a separate vehicle ready to meet emergent situations such as hospitalization in case of injury where more than 100 women are employed in a shift;
• Intimate the proposed arrangement for engaging women in night shift to the regional Inspector for verification;
• Conduct a meeting once in 8 weeks for all women employees working in night shifts as well as regular shifts through their representatives in the form of a “grievance day”;
• Send a fortnightly report to the Inspector mentioning the details of employees engaged during night shifts and send an express report to the Inspector as well as the local Police station in case of any unexpected incident.
While you will notice the date of the document in the source as 12th August, 2022 please note that the Notification has been recently made available in the public domain.
A copy of the Notification is linked below for your ease of reference.
Source: Department of Labour and Employment, Himachal Pradesh
