ABSTRACT
Reading the Indian business press today, or listening to many economists, one might get the impression that trade unions have a stranglehold on the political economy. They strike on a whim, their jobs are protected by Palaeolithic labour legislation, their wages are unconnected to productivity and they are protected by a judiciary committed to outmoded notions of social justice, which are implemented through the system of mandatory arbitration – or so the story goes. Perhaps this is why, across the country in recent years, their very right to strike has come under attack by legislatures and even by the ostensibly doting judiciary. Labour is increasingly presented by elite circles as a sectional interest, holding the national economy hostage to its narrow agenda.
