ISSN (Print) - 0012-9976 | ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

LabourSubscribe to Labour

Labour Agency and Global Production Networks in India

Recognising an increasing interface of the domestic labour—informal as well as unorganised—with the global production networks, this article engages with two specific research concerns. One is the relevance of traditional trade unions, and the other is the role of the new, even as both labour standards and rights confront the challenges of capital-favouring new labour legislations. The systemic exclusion of the lower-tier workers, despite their globality, reinforces and justifies informality and precarity in the labour process.

Wage Suppression and Wage-rentierism

The surplus value created by non-supervisory workers is typically understood as captured by firm owners and shareholders (that is, as capital income). The surplus value created by non-supervisory workers is captured largely in the form of compensation for high-level executives, and that this capture explains a greater share of wealth inequality than increases in capital’s share of income.

Poverty Alleviation and Pro-poor Growth in Odisha

During the 2000s, Odisha recorded a faster reduction in the poverty ratio than ever before. This paper examines the pro-poorness of growth in Odisha and among its regions during this time. The pro-poor growth index, poverty equivalent growth, growth incidence curve, and poverty decomposition methods have been used to estimate pro-poor growth. The fast decline in inequality with the growth in household monthly per capita expenditure resulted in a faster reduction in poverty in Odisha. All the regions of rural Odisha and the coastal region of urban Odisha recorded a faster decline in poverty during the period of analysis and were more pro-poor during the 2000s. The panel regression result shows that the districts with high per capita income in the tertiary sector witnessed faster poverty reduction, whereas the primary and secondary sector PCI had no significant impact on poverty reduction in Odisha.

Non-Brahmin Labour Movement in Bombay and Indian National Movement

The development of the mill industry in Bombay[1] heavily relied on family, kinship, caste and patronage. Labour recruitment and organisation were also correlated to family, kinship, caste and patronage. The rise and growth of the Indian National Movement in Bombay was largely connected with caste politics. The early growth of the Indian National Congress was connected with the society's elite and oppressor caste community. Prominent leaders from the Indian National Congress were mainly from the Brahmin caste. M K Gandhi and his various movements had created space for the non-Brahmin in the national movements. But it was not an easy task to convince the non-Brahmin masses to join the Indian national movements. This article explains the initial phase of Gandhi and his early attempts to organise non-Brahmin labour unions and encourage their participation in national movements. Further, it explains how these non-Brahmin leaders joined the Congress party and its various significant movements. This process primarily affected the labour unrest and national movement in Bombay.

The World of Work in an Age of Permanent Crisis

The long crisis of monopoly capitalism has left the world of work in disarray. Several ongoing transformations in the world economy, such as those pertaining to the dispersion of production processes, and technological transformations, have major implications for the evolving labour question. When viewed through the lens of Karl Marx’s analytical framework, especially his formulation of the “General Law of Capitalist Accumulation,” one can conclude that the material and sociopolitical prospects for labouring people are being reconfigured. Thus, it is evident that capitalism is entirely unable to resolve the world’s labour question, and this necessitates moving beyond the logic of capitalism itself.

Inter-industry Wage Differentials in Indian Manufacturing

From a labour perspective, wage rates are reflective of the market demand for different skills and the institutional structures. Also, wage rate is a better measure of the well-being of workers solely dependent on wage income. This paper notes persistent regularity in industry-level wage rates confirming the absence of a convergence behaviour. The stability of industry-level wage rates brings industrial reforms under the scanner for their implications on worker welfare. Wage convergence could be inhibited by the inter-industry movement of workers.

Labour Laws for Gig Workers in the Context of Labour Law Reforms

In an attempt to incorporate the doctrine of universalisation of social security, the gig workers are brought into the ambit of the labour laws for the first time, with the provision of some welfare measures under the Code on Social Security, 2020. The three other codes are silent on the policies towards gig workers. While the codes are yet to be implemented, there are many questions pertaining to the clarity of the codes and how to implement them effectively to meet the intended objectives.

Contemporary Capitalism and the 4th Industrial Revolution

In this episode Atul Bhardwaj discusses his papers on Contemporary Capitalism and the 4th Industrial Revolution. The first paper titled ' Decay of Liberalism and Withering Away of the Left: Fourth Industrial Revolution ' talks about how the technology-driven revolution is fundamentally affecting the relationship between capital and labour. And how this change is driving right-wing populism across the globe while the left seems to be left behind. The second paper titled ' The Capital–Labour Rupture and the World Order ' takes this further arguing that cyber-capitalism is the driving force of...

Weather Woes: Climate Communication and Social Protection in the Indian Heat Wave

Excess heat emerged as an influential element in recent weather communication about India. Drawing insight from scholars, who have expressed the need to examine the commodification and communication of scientific research, we argue that ‘heatwave’ reportage derived from ‘fast event attribution’ seek to make climate science, usable for businesses and public policy making. We show that central to recent policy documents, that focus on heat, is advocacy for the structural transformation of national economies by shifting labour from agriculture and construction to services. The classification of labour as ‘outdoor’ and ‘indoor’, in heat-policy, reduce the responsibilities of governments from providing comprehensive social protection to disadvantaged working population to: warnings and advisories and bio-surveillance of working and migrant populations. Climate knowledge produced and disseminated in this form individualizes risk and diminishes public responsibility towards the protection of least advantaged groups. Such translations raise concerns for climate justice as they displace enriched understandings of human-environment relationships that should underpin environmental governance and social policy.

Bodies in Waiting

Reflecting on the burgeoning field of feminist media histories and contemporary debates around Shanta Apte’s films, protests, and writing, along with sources that bring narratives from different women in the film industry, this paper argues that such discussions enable us to rethink questions of gender, creative labour, characteristics of film work, and the industrial milieu. This permits a shift in the focus of study to subjects of waiting, legal battles, and writing and considers evolving labour geographies produced by the migration of cine-workers to examine the problems of creative labour.

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