Working conditions and human rights are two sides of the same coin

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Passage of time tends to blur memories of historical facts and events from the not-so-distant past.

Such a fog seems to be obscuring the link between the tragic death of a young chartered accountant employed with audit firm EY and the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). A dissociative fugue also seems to afflict governments and other regulators that fail to see how workplace-related mishaps are linked with human-rights violations.

The young professional’s death, followed by her mother’s poignant letter to the EY chairman about the fatal consequences of overwork, has triggered a social media debate: between those demanding better working conditions and, on the other side, those claiming that employees should be prepared for long hours and personal sacrifices. It might be appropriate to ask whether such a debate is masking the core issues which separate work from life, or eclipsing the primacy of basic human rights.

This side-stepping of first principles also allows many Indian companies to underpay employees and overwork them, even while denying them basic rights or access to rudimentary facilities. It might be instructive for all professionals to actually read the UDHR, specifically Article 24: “Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay." What makes the Article even more enduring is the involvement of Indian leaders in the drafting, discussion and finalization of the Declaration.

One interesting example stands out. Indian representative at the United Nations and constituent assembly member Hansa Mehta was instrumental in changing the wording of Article 1: from the original “all men are born