Globalisation, Industrial Restructuring and Labour Standards

The discourse on civil society is rapidly overshadowing the narratives on labour and the working class. As a consequence, most exiting studies on contemporary Indian capitalism focus on change in the production structure, product and capital markets, fiscal policies, inflation, or foreign trade. Workers, the material conditions of their work, and their earnings are now largely ignored. Providing a necessary corrective, this book analyses the current conditions of work in the Indian factory sector, and provides a critical analysis of the wage, profit and productivity behaviour over the last two decades. Examining the specificities of the conditions of industrial workers, it addresses three major questions: what has happened to the relative shares of profits and wages; how do we explain the levels and changes; and are better labour standards antithetical to the project of industrial restructuring? The author also examines the problem of industrial restructuring in India within the broader context of power and inequality in the workplace. He argues that even though the existing laws mandate decent labour conditions, India has been unable to implement them because of the minimalist position taken by successive governments. Marshalling evidence from numerous sectors of the economy, Dr Banerjee also demonstrates the vacuity of currently fashionable labour market prescriptions of mainstream economics which treat labour simply as a factor in production and emphasise ‘lean’ production. The resultant wage squeeze, he maintains, only violates the basic rights of workers. Providing new and fascinating insights into industrial growth, labour standards and development in the framework of globalization, this book will interest students and scholars of economics, economic history, political science and sociology, as well as student of management and labour relations.