‘Class’ in Industrial Disputes: Case Studies from Bangalore

Abstract

The decline of labour activism has been noted as a global phenomenon. One important reason for this decline has been said to be the change in the structure of labour. First, new labour practices — outsourcing and contract work — have meant that relatively smaller numbers of workers are now concentrated in single locations, in Fordist, assembly-line production centres. Secondly, as manufacturing units become capital intensive, and high technology driven, large numbers of semi-skilled or unskilled workers are replaced by a small, skilled workforce, frequently with highly specialized, individualized functions, and individual, rather than collective pay scales and benefits: all of this takes away the teeth of collective action within the factory in particular and in the workforce in general. Thus the classical management-labour conflict may no longer be so significant. Finally, as is well known, there has occurred a rapid expansion of the informal sector, and in the numbers of those who are self-employed, or employed in small and unregulated enterprises. In this domain industrial dispute has few overt or political manifestations. It is in this sense that industrial conflict is no longer seen to be a key to understanding political or social dynamics.