India’s Liberalisation Project and the Future of Trade Unions

Abstract

India’s ruling class, since the liberalisation period that began in 1991, has attempted to fragment and weaken India’s trade union movement. The main instrument for this weakening is to be the imf-drive ‘labour market reform’ agenda. However, the Indian working class has struggled against the structural process of being integrated into the global value chain, a process that has put pressure on the trade union movement even as trade union laws remain in place. Drawing upon a survey we have conducted amongst garment workers in the Delhi region, we describe the nature of the class struggle faced by Indian workers, and we introduce the reader to the character of the resistance offered by the workers and the unions.