Labour and the State in India: Casualisation as Reform

Abstract

This chapter addresses key challenges facing the Indian labour market in the post-reforms period that is overwhelmed by a growing informal labour force including migrants, and decline in the quality of jobs. The rising trend of informalisation and contractual work even in the formal sector has been a matter of concern as this has serious implications for even skilled and educated workers accepting jobs with suboptimal employment conditions. The rising divergence between share of wages and that of profits in the formal sector has been a disturbing trend. Even as existing plethora of labour laws had been often ineffective and hardly covered the informal workers the new Labour Codes legislated without adequate debate are unlikely to address longstanding issues facing informal labour. These legislations offer a free hand to capital to hire and fire to keep business growing. The absence of a robust labour agency for the informal workers has implied rights and social security benefits are compromised for them including those toiling for suppliers within the global production networks.