Book Reviews – The Vernacularization of Labour Politics

Recent studies of the contemporary situation of labour in neoliberal economies and of labour movements have emphasized a ‘decline of trade unionism’. This assessment is widespread and holds true for India, especially when we consider that the period following large-scale liberalization in 1991 was characterized by declining public sector employment and encouragement of the private sector where unionizing was severely clamped down upon. With this shrinking of its traditional membership base the trade union movement in India has retreated from the public arena. Its bargaining power has also consistently been eroded due to new forms of work organization, such as flexibilization, contract and sub-contracting, work on piece rate basis, transfer of workers from permanent to non-permanent categories, and by the growing potential of employers to relocate operations to regions with little or no semblance of unionization. The increased casualization of labour and the exponential growth in informal workers has unfortunately not elicited an appropriate response from established unions.