Marginalised Unions

Is it that the two parties can take the increasingly malleable unions for granted? Or is it that labour has ceased to be of much importance in their electoral calculations because liberalisation and reform have substantially altered union behaviour? For instance, in the private sector at least, the unions are acting more responsibly in the knowledge that unless they co-operate, the companies for which their members work can shut down in the face of competition engendered by liberalisation. This has resulted in a reduction in union militancy as the unions have been quick to realise that the all-for-one, one-for-all principle has its limitations. In other words, the unions have helped to make the labour market in the private sector more flexible, without the government introducing a formal exit policy. Both employers and employees have discovered a common objective -- survival.

 

This isnt true of the public sector, not yet anyway. Its white collar unions, especially in the service sector where it still enjoys a monopoly or near-monopoly, are at their self-defeating worst. This isnt surprising, considering they enjoy an extraordinary degree of legal and political protection. Nevertheless, even there, voluntary retirement schemes (VRS) are taking off. SAIL, for instance, has announced that it plans to pack off as many as 60,000 workers under a VRS. Elsewhere in the public sector smaller, independent unions of skilled and semi-skilled workers have gained in importance. Many of these prefer to deal independently of the large, politically affiliated unions. It is probably a combination of all these factors which has made the trade union movement marginal to the political process. True, the unions still play a role in the communist-dominated states. But then it is also true that in those states the communist-affiliated unions like the Aituc and Citu are in reality a part and parcel of the

establishment, with little real autonomy.

The unions may have been dismissed briefly, but both manifestoes dwell at greater length on the issue of employment which in a sense is the real issue. The BJP is unconvincing yet again, while the Congress essentially talks of faster economic growth accelerating job creation. Although the skimpy statistics which exist do suggest that employment growth has picked up, there is the question of jobless growth in the organised sector of the economy. This would be of obvious concern to the unions as it cuts into their membership base, and the concern can only grow as the corporate shakeout gathers momentum. Especially if some employers act stupidly, this could well lead to some revival of union activisim, but this is unlikely to be on the scale seen in the past. The treatment of labour issues in the manifestoes suggests that political parties are not really focused on these issues; the endangered species they have their eyes on is the Indian businessman!