ABSTRACT

This book discusses the transformation of labour movements and trade unionism in post-liberalised India. It looks at emerging collectivism, both in formal and informal sectors, and relates it to changing political and industrial relations. Bringing together studies of resistance, struggles and new forms of negotiations from different industries –agriculture, fisheries, brick kiln, plantations, IT, domestic workers, shipbreakers, sex workers, and miners –this book exposes the myths, realities and challenges that the present generation of workers in India face and struggle with. With contributions from leading thinkers in the field, the work deepens the understanding of the current Indian labour spaces, possibilities for contestations and articulations from below.

The volume will be useful to students and researchers of labour studies, economics, sociology, development studies and public policy. It will be an invaluable resource to those engaged with industrial relations, trade unions, human rights, social exclusion as well as labour organisations and research institutions.

chapter |13 pages

Introduction

part I|77 pages

The contemporary Indian labour space

chapter 1|28 pages

Labourscape and labour space in post-liberalised India

Critical reflections

chapter 2|17 pages

Unionisation in post-reform India

A review of trends and trajectories

chapter 3|30 pages

Globalisation dynamics and the working-class movement

An agenda for future

part II|86 pages

Responding to informality

chapter 4|22 pages

Breaking the bondage

Organising brick kiln workers in rural Punjab

chapter 5|22 pages

Safeguarding livelihoods in fisheries

A complex organisational challenge

chapter 6|19 pages

The struggle for space

Organising street vendors in India

chapter 7|21 pages

Domestic workers’ movement in Maharashtra

Organising experiences of Pune City Domestic Workers’ Organisation

part III|94 pages

New articulations

chapter 8|27 pages

New identities require new strategies

Union formation in the Indian IT/ITES sector

chapter 9|18 pages

The SEWA Lok Swasthya Mandali

A dual experiment in organising and service provision in Gujarat

chapter 10|24 pages

“As human beings and as workers”

Sex worker unionisation in Karnataka, India

chapter 11|23 pages

Organising the unorganised

Academic and activist insights from shipbreaking yards in Mumbai

part IV|66 pages

The new waves

chapter 12|21 pages

Mistaken identities in information technology sector in India

Implications for unionisation

chapter 13|22 pages

Possibilities and barriers of workers’ co-operative

Lessons from failed takeover experience of a closed mine in Jharkhand

chapter 14|21 pages

Uprisings by women in tea plantations

Contextualising the Pombilai Orumai movement in Kerala