 "Illustration by Ajay Mohanty")
Indian trade union membership – 15 per cent of the labour force – is higher than rich countries (10 per cent in the US and 7 per cent in England) but may peak at levels lower than them (36 per cent in the US and 50 per cent in England). Why? Exhaustion, betrayal or obsolescence? The extinction of trade unions is imminent but hardly inevitable; we make the case for an alternate future because trade unions are an important civil society institution whose decline is not murder but suicide. Just like effective governments are not pro-business but pro-markets, trade unions
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