When the Heat Becomes the Job: India's Informal Workers Between Climate Change and the New Labour Codes
- Khushi Dhoundiyal
- 18 hours ago
- 7 min read
Updated: 4 minutes ago
This May, India did not merely witness heatwaves but became the epicentre of a global climate emergency. Real-time global weather metrics revealed that 97 of the world's 100 hottest cities were located in India. These deteriorating climate conditions leave over 90% of the workforce, informal workers who account for nearly 50% of the national GDP, helpless, and with the implementation of new labour codes, the situation has worsened.
The amalgamation of a disrupted world order, the transition towards an enterprise-friendly market, and climate change has instilled fear among individuals. With prices of goods and services touching the sky and businesses struggling to generate revenue, threats to employment have now taken over every tea table discussion. Summers in much of India have always been harsh, but what is unfolding now is considerably more severe. Temperatures have remained above 40°C for days at a stretch, leading to tens of thousands of suspected heatstroke cases across the country. Those who bear the greatest risk are not those for whom the emergency is named. They are the construction labourers, the sanitation workers, the gig riders and the daily wage earners who spend long hours outdoors and remain, under the law as it currently stands, without strong or enforceable protections against extreme heat.
Most of the population in India has no access to air conditioners. People are still working in open spaces under direct sun exposure at unbearable temperatures to earn an income, while combating scorching heat, with temperatures exceeding 40°C during the day and increasingly hotter nights. Their struggle has doubled with the newly implemented labour codes. The previous 29 labour laws have now been subsumed into four labour codes, which were passed between 2019 and 2020. As claimed by the Centre, this was an attempt to simplify and unify labour regulations. The four Codes are the Code on Wages, the Industrial Relations Code, the Code on Social Security, and the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code. For the workers who need them most, however, the promise of reform has yet to arrive.
The Legal Architecture and Its Gaps
Experts have expressed serious apprehension over these Codes, arguing that they could weaken labour rights rather than strengthen them. The most directly relevant instrument is the Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code. Section 23 grants the government the power to establish safety standards, including those related to heat exposure. The provision grants the government discretion rather than imposing a clear legal obligation to introduce such standards. The law recognises the issue of workplace safety in principle but does not require specific heat protection measures for workers in practice.
This represents a significant failure of design. The older Factories Act of 1948, the legislation the Codes were meant to improve upon, applied only to indoor workplaces and excluded outdoor workers entirely. The OSHWC Code was expected to correct that exclusion. Research by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water has found that nearly 57% of Indian districts are now categorised as heat-stressed, yet informal outdoor workers remain entirely outside any enforceable legal protections.
Critics argue that while the Code on Social Security formally recognises gig and platform workers for the first time, it fails to provide concrete protection against climate-related vulnerabilities such as extreme heat and income loss during heatwaves. The Code contains no specific provisions addressing income loss caused by extreme temperature, no entitlement to paid leave during declared heatwaves, no requirement for heat-related compensation, and no enforceable right to rest breaks during periods of extreme heat. Labour experts point out that delivery workers, sanitation workers, construction labourers, and other informal workers often continue working in dangerous temperatures without guaranteed compensation, paid leave, healthcare support, or heat-safety regulations.
Similarly, provisions in the Industrial Relations Code have been criticised for making layoffs easier and weakening workers' collective bargaining power at a time when climate stress is already increasing economic insecurity. The law raises the threshold at which employers must seek government permission before layoffs and retrenchment, and places stricter conditions on strikes and industrial action. Trade unions such as the Centre of Indian Trade Unions and the All India Trade Union Congress have repeatedly opposed the labour codes, arguing that they prioritise labour flexibility over worker welfare.
What the Research Establishes
Santosh Mehrotra, a Research Fellow at the IZA Institute of Labour Economics and former Professor of Economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, co-authored one of the more consequential evaluations of the Codes with economist Kingshuk Sarkar. Writing for The Wire in February 2026, they argued that the four new Labour Codes continue to exclude most of the workforce by maintaining employee and worker thresholds that show no real intention of reversing the growing informalisation of the labour force. On the OSHWC Code specifically, Mehrotra and Sarkar raised significant concerns about the shift from labour inspectors to what the Code describes as "inspector-cum-facilitators," a change that moves enforcement from deterrence to self-certification and advisory compliance. In a separate piece in The India Forum, Mehrotra criticised the Social Security Code for not stressing the role of employers in providing social security and for missing an opportunity to use those provisions to drive formalisation.
The research also points to something troubling beneath the legal surface. A study published in the Demography journal of Duke University found that members of marginalised caste groups, who make up a large share of India's informal outdoor workforce, experienced up to 150% greater occupational heat exposure than members of dominant caste groups. The distribution of heat risk maps closely onto existing hierarchies of caste, class and gender. Exposure to the worst of what climate change delivers is not random. It follows the lines that Indian society has long drawn between those whose labour carries legal protection and those whose labour is simply assumed to be available.
Voices from the Ground
During conversations with workers across Delhi, many described how extreme heat has become inseparable from their daily struggle for survival.
"They don't pay us for overtime, but this heat is a part of my job. Let's hope it rains soon," said Sonu, a construction worker.
A woman construction worker, Geeta, said, "I might have to leave as it's getting unbearable. If we both fall sick, how will we manage the income?"
Geeta's anxiety sits at the precise intersection of climate and labour that the Codes do not address. Women workers bear a dual burden: they risk financial loss on heatwave days whilst also being expected to manage more domestic labour as household conditions worsen under extreme heat. The Labour Codes contain no gender-specific heat provisions and say nothing about this compounded pressure.
Laxmi's resentment towards the encouragement for women to work at night revealed how working hours are being extended whilst salaries remain low and concerns over women's safety persist. As she put it, "this doesn't make sense, I live in Delhi, it's not possible to work at night for peanuts while risking my life."
"If I need breaks in this hot weather, then I have to think twice as it could affect my income," said Aman, a gig worker associated with Blinkit. Aman's situation captures exactly what formal recognition without enforceable protection looks like from inside it. The Code on Social Security acknowledges that he exists as a category of worker. It does not guarantee him the right to stop and drink water without that pause appearing as a cost in his earnings.
For sanitation workers, long hours under harsh weather conditions are often part of everyday life, with many of them remaining outside the formal employment structure. Muneem, a sewer worker, earns around Rs 15,000 a month and works from 9am to 9pm, often longer, without a formal contract or employment protection. "I'm used to the heat," he said. "This job is a very huge risk. I can't give up because I need the income." The OSHWC Code theoretically covers Muneem. In practice, its protections have no mechanism to reach him.
Several protests and demonstrations have been witnessed across the country in recent months against the labour codes, and these voices from the ground provide a real-time understanding of what is at stake, how little protection is guaranteed against climate-related conditions, and how climate change is forcing women workers to quit their jobs whilst they remain responsible for household duties that do not pause because the temperature has crossed 44°C.
The Constitutional Obligation
What raises this beyond a policy failure and into the domain of legal obligation is the constitutional framework India has already developed. In the 2024 case of M.K. Ranjitsinh v. Union of India, the Supreme Court held that the adverse effects of climate change can impair fundamental rights protected under Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution, including the rights to equality, life and personal dignity. The judgment has been widely interpreted as recognising protection from extreme heat and other climate-related harms as part of the constitutional guarantee of a dignified life under Article 21. Some legal scholars have referred to this emerging principle as a Right to Cool.
If protection from deadly heat constitutes a fundamental right, then the absence of enforceable heat-safety standards in the OSHWC Code is not a legislative oversight. It is a failure of constitutional duty. Sonu, Geeta, Laxmi, Aman and Muneem are not simply unprotected by the law as currently written. They are being denied rights that the highest court in the country has said they possess.
What a Serious Response Would Require
The experiences of informal workers labouring under extreme heat reflect a growing crisis at the intersection of climate and labour. As debates around the labour codes continue, workers and unions argue that the conversation cannot remain limited to economic reforms alone. It must also address safety, dignity, and the right to work under humane conditions.
Some states have begun to move ahead of the Centre in ways that offer instructive, if partial, models. Kerala has declared heatwaves a state-specific disaster and requires safety measures for outdoor workers during such periods. Tamil Nadu has gone further by providing relief payments to the families of workers who die from heat exposure. Neither model is sufficient on its own, but both offer considerably more than what the four Labour Codes currently provide.
A meaningful national response would require mandatory enforcement of heat-stress safety standards, including shaded rest areas, regulated hydration breaks, and financial penalties for non-compliance rather than advisories without legal consequence. It would require heat allowances for informal workers tied to officially declared heatwave days. It would require the recognition of gig workers under the Social Security Code to be given substantive content: income protection during climate emergencies and enforceable rest rights that do not reduce a worker's pay. And it would require a serious review of the Industrial Relations Code's restrictions on collective action, at precisely the moment when collective action is the primary mechanism through which workers without formal contracts could hope to secure any of the above.
India has plenty of laws. The problem lies not in their number but in their enforceability, the political will behind them, and who they genuinely protect when the temperature reaches 44°C and there is no shed, no cooler, no contract, and no inspector with authority to insist otherwise. Muneem will be back at the sewer by nine tomorrow morning. Aman will think twice before taking a break. Geeta is weighing whether she can afford to stay. The law, as it stands, has no answer for any of them.