After 90-hour workweek row, L&T Chairman SN Subrahmanyan announces ‘one day menstrual leave’
Women employees make up about 9% of Larsen and Toubro's 60,000 workforce.
Larsen and Toubro (L&T) Chairman SN Subrahmanyan has announced that women employees at the L&T parent group will now be eligible for one day of menstrual leave, Livemint reported.
This makes L&T one of the first in the industry to offer menstrual leave.
In 2024, Odisha had become the first state in India to introduce a one-day menstrual leave policy for women workers in both the state government and private offices.
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In September 2024, it was reported that Karnataka is mulling a six days of paid menstrual leave a year for women in both private and public sectors.
The draft Bill, christened ‘The Right of Women to Menstrual Leave and Free Access to Menstrual Health Products,’ aimed to improve work-life balance for women by addressing the physical and emotional challenges they face during menstruation, and will be worked on by a government-appointed committee.
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Subrahmanyan's 90-hour workweek suggestion
The menstrual leave at L&T comes in the wake of Subrahmanyan's 90-hour work week suggestion. During an interaction with the company's employees, he had said he wished he could make them work 90 hours each day, including on Sundays.
“I regret I am not able to make you work on Sundays, to be honest. If I can make you work on Sundays, I will be more happy because I work on Sundays too,” Subrahmanyan had said.
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He then went on to comment on alternatives to working on Sundays and said, “What do you do sitting at home? How long can you stare at your wife? How long can the wives stare at their husbands? Come on, get to the office and start working."
Sonica Muraleedharan, L&T's Head of Human Resources for Domestic Operations, in a LinkedIn post claimed that the chairman's words were taken out of context and were casual in nature and not intended as a mandate.
