Employee Compensation Packages in Industrial Establishments
Every industrial establishment, irrespective of its sectorial classification such as Private Sector or Public Sector, and irrespective of its constitution, such as a Company registered under the Companies Act or any other form, has the liberty to formulate its own employee compensation package or remuneration structure.
In the matter of hiring labor, you know well that what is hired is labor-power, and its measurement for the purpose of paying compensation or wages is labor-time. Owing to the rise in the collective bargaining power of labor through unionization and the universal advent of social security labor legislations, the effective cost of labor began to be more. In order to lessen the burden of the employer, the wage structure came to be broken into components, thus distinguishing them into direct and indirect parts.
Direct and Indirect Components of Wages
What needs to be included for determining the statutory social security measures such as provident fund, insurance against employment accidents, and gratuity became recognized as direct components, including the actual basic cost of hiring the labor-power, and the rest as indirect ones.
Understanding Nominal and Real Wages
I do hope that you are well aware of the concepts of NOMINAL/MONEY WAGE, which are just the earnings in cash or its equivalent, and REAL WAGE, which denotes the money wages discounted by the cost of living index showing the purchasing power of the wages actually earned. Thus, the practice of paying D.A linked to the cost of living index came into vogue. Even you can pay it at a flat rate or on a graduated scale without a linkage to CPI. However, the sum total of your wages should not fall short of the statutory minimum wages fixed.
Regards,