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.