Workers, Unions, and Global Capitalism by Rohini Hensman

Author:Rohini Hensman [Hensman, Rohini]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Asian, Asia, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science
ISBN: 9780231519564
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2011-01-27T05:00:00+00:00

Union Organizing

Despite the enormous obstacles facing them, large numbers of informal workers were organizing by the start of the twenty-first century. The verification report released by the Central Labour Commissioner in December 2006 showed a massive increase in membership in the central trade unions, and most of the new members were informal workers (The Hindu 2006). Others had joined independent unions, such as the Nirman Mazdoor Panchayat Sangam, which organizes construction workers in Tamil Nadu. There were cases of hand-loom and other informal workers forming unions and engaging in collective bargaining (De Neve 2005, 144–151; Rajesh and Singh 2003). In January 2006, after a worker was killed in a work-related accident and his family was offered a mere Rs 26,000 as compensation, Reliance Energy contract workers contacted the TUSC, which helped them to get the amount raised to Rs 650,000 and to take up demands for bonuses and ESI medical benefits. They subsequently formed the Mumbai Electric Employees’ Union, and with TUSC support they commenced a struggle for social-security benefits, which was still going on in 2009. Power-loom and garment workers, and contract workers in steel, oil, gas, coal, refineries, chemicals, fertilizers, and power generation were all being organized by NTUI unions (NTUI 2007a).

There was much more separate union organizing among women workers in the informal than in the formal sector. One of the earliest and best-known examples was SEWA, founded in 1972, but others were formed subsequently. Homeworkers making beedis in Hyderabad went from house to house contacting workers in order to form the Navayuga Karmika Beedi Sangam; the union was registered in 1987, and by 1994 it had a membership of around five thousand (Hensman 2000, 2002). Penn Thozhilalargal Sangam (the Women Workers’ Union) was started in Tamil Nadu in 1999 and registered in 2001, organizing women in construction and quarrying, domestic service, and the garment industry. The Domestic Workers’ Union, which was started in 2005, had around twenty-six thousand members in Bombay and fifty thousand in Maharashtra by early 2008, a truly impressive rate of organization. This resulted in the Maharashtra Domestic Workers Welfare Board Act (2008), which provided for the registration of workers, the regulation of employment, and welfare and social-security benefits (The India Post 2009). Even where women did not organize separately, they were often vocal and active in unions of informal workers.

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