ABSTRACT
There has been a growing interest among policy makers and analysts in the Indian industrial relations (IR) system since the early 1990s, primarily because of the new economic policy of liberalization, privatization and globalization adopted by the Indian Government since 1991 (Kuruvilla and Hiers 2000; Frenkel and Kuruvilla 2002; Bhagwati 2004; Papola 2004). It is argued that India has moved from an economic model of import substitution to export orientation and this transition in macro-economic policy has resulted in changes in the labour market policy in general and the industrial relations framework in particular. The economic reforms and the changes in industrial relations framework are an ongoing phenomenon and the cumulative effect of these changes is likely to have a substantive impact on the nature of ownership of public and private sector enterprises, corporate governance, labour laws and institutions, the nature and strength of trade unions, and the way in which firms manage their internal labour markets. This chapter examines some of the features of the post-reform Indian industrial relations system, the arguments of the advocates of reforms to the industrial relations system and, in the light of those arguments, reviews some of the evidence emerging in the Indian IR literature.
