In the article, “Choosing dying over changing” (February 14), Manish Sabharwal and Sonal Arora suggest laudable and lofty roles for Indian trade unions. However, the ground reality is discouraging.
The biggest hurdle in crafting these roles is the adversarial attitude of the unions towards employers, their strong roots with political parties and lack of enlightened leadership.
Besides, the unions have gained strength through legislation and adjudication rather than through collective bargaining. That is why they overlooked the interest of the much-exploited informal labour sector, though it constitutes nearly 95 per cent of the workforce. Trade unions cannot enforce higher wages
