The informalization of capital and interlocking in labour contracting networks

Abstract

analyses of labour contracting crucially inform studies of labour informalization and precarious work in industrial systems and production networks. Challenging conceptualizations emphasizing contractors' intermediary role, and drawing from debates on petty commodity production and interlocking, this article analyzes labour contractors in the home-based embroidery sector in Bareilly, India. It shows that these are informal capitalists, rather than intermediaries. Workers' precariousness is not due to intermediation, but to the way in which surplus extraction is secured interlocking labour and credit markets, and broader realms of social reproduction. Interventions targeting intermediation may not always ameliorate the lives of the working poor.

The restructuring of Italian agriculture and its impact upon capital–labour relations: Labour contracting and exploitation in the fresh fruit and vegetable supply chain of the Lazio Region, Central Italy

“…However, in her ethnographic study on labour contractors in the South Indian garment industry, De Neve () argues that even those studies critically connecting the increasing use of labour market intermediaries with capitalism often provide an oversimplified and one‐dimensional representation of contractors, depicting them as unscrupulous and rapacious exploiters of vulnerable labour, without questioning their effective power, leverage, and position. Likewise, Mezzadri (), in her study of the embroidery branch in Uttar Pradesh, India, where a deep process of informalization of labour can be found, illustrates the great complexity of labour contracting networks involved in flexible industrial systems linked to the global economy and generating different degrees of precariousness of work and livelihoods.…”

“…Likewise, Mezzadri (2016), in her study of the embroidery branch in Uttar Pradesh, India, where a deep process of informalization of labour can be found, illustrates the great complexity of labour contracting networks involved in flexible industrial systems linked to the global economy and generating different degrees of precariousness of work and livelihoods.…”

“…Only recently, just a few useful studies have incorporated the resurgence of the gangmaster system and gang labour within the global production networks framework (Barrientos, 2008(Barrientos, , 2013De Neve, 2014;Mezzadri, 2008Mezzadri, , 2016.…”

Short-term contracts and their effect on wages in Indian regular wage employment

“…Changes occurring in the Indian economy have led to an increase in such employment in certain sectors. Kalhan (2008), Mezzadri (2016) and Mezzadri and Srivastava (2015) outline how globalisation has led to a significant increase and institutionalisation of informal forms of employment in sectors such as the garment industry. With regard to the organised manufacturing sector, the extent of subcontracting of workers has increased significantly in recent times.…”

Integrating Theories on Informal Economies: An Examination of Causes of Urban Informal Economies in China

“…Together with climate change, resource depletion, rapid urbanization, and poverty, employment informality is listed by the United Nations Human Settlement Programme (UN-Habitat) as one of the major challenges to global sustainable development in the 21st century [3]. On one hand, the informal economy contributes to sustainable development because of its role in alleviating unemployment and poverty and promoting local economies [4][5][6][7]; on the other hand, it is also seen as a sign of underdevelopment and unsustainability given the nature of poor working conditions and precarity in informal employment [8][9][10]. Hence, the development and regulation of informal economies has become a key policy issue for national governments and supra-national agencies worldwide.…”