ABSTRACT

Political regimes – democratic or authoritarian – shape social organizations

and mold the state itself. Political regimes also frame the relationships between those social organizations and the state – the administrative appa-

ratus of government. Accordingly, most labor studies emphasize the impact

of political regimes on the organization and representation of labor. Few

labor studies show how labor organizations and labor institutions help to

produce or reinforce political regimes. This book considers the influence

both of organized labor on political regimes and of political regimes on

organized labor. This chapter focuses on the former, the impact of orga-

nized labor on political regime formation. Unions and workers themselves helped to shape political regimes as well

as economic institutions, and the state itself. Everywhere, political regimes

have structured labor institutions and labor organizations to suit their

needs. At the same time, but less well acknowledged or understood, workers

and unions have themselves influenced political and economic development.

Even in the predominantly poor and rural economies of India and Pakistan,

where labor’s bargaining power is low, workers and their associations helped

to determine significant economic and political outcomes. The history of union opposition to authoritarian governments of all

kinds in the South Asian Subcontinent is as long as the history of union

organization itself. Workers resisted colonial rule. They shirked the regi-

mentation of factory work when the British established manufacturing

shops. Workers gave employer associations in colonizing economies reason

to fund study of the problems of absenteeism and backward-bending supply

curves for labor (workers wanting fewer hours at higher wages) in the colonial

world.2 In South Asia, workers used the organization formed through

factory work – including working class neighborhood associations – to close

down industry and crowd colonial jails.