India and Covid-19: decisive but controversial actions seem to be working

A disclaimer to start with: in a federal union of 1.3 billion persons comprising 17 per cent of humankind, 36 states and territories, multiple languages and ethnic groups, few if any observations are valid across the whole country. Democracies find it hard to make tough decisions and to adapt when they need to improvise without precedents;pre-emption to tackle a problem before it becomes a crisis is never a democratic strength, especially in a federation. India took relatively early steps against Covid-19: visas were rescinded on March 18;international flights stopped on March 22;and domestic flights were terminated on March 24. Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for a 12-h nation-wide voluntary curfew on 22 March, marked with high observance, which was a dress rehearsal for a full lock-down from 24 March for 21 days with relaxations for medicines, media, banks and groceries. The national closure was the most comprehensive in history. At that stage, India had registered 500 cases and 10 deaths. The trade-off was to lose lives to Covid-19, or gain time to prepare health services and risk the economic consequences. Modi acted quickly although it caused hardship to millions. By and large, the lockdown was observed, justifying the theory that Indians react best in emergency mode.

European Cross-Sectoral Collective Bargaining as Post-Crisis Social Policy

This article proposes a policy project, centered around coordinated collective bargaining at the European Union level, to redistribute income towards low-wage workers in post-crisis Europe. It suggests we allow labor unions in sectors employing low-wage workers to present common wage demands across sectors and EU Member States. It shows that this would make union wage increases less harmful to workers and consumers than under uncoordinated sectoral bargaining, while coming more directly at the expense of managers and investors. The article then describes existing EU legal institutions that-although they do not quite amount to the policy proposed here-constitute useful precedents for it. These institutions are European social dialogue, European Works Councils, and European Framework Agreements bargained for by multinational firms and worker representatives. The article also discusses doctrines of EU competition and internal market law that could potentially be held to prohibit European cross-sectoral collective bargaining coordination. The article lays out arguments in favor of finding such coordination lawful, so that it may form part of the EU's policy arsenal to address wrenching economic inequalities worsened by the ongoing economic and health crises.