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Redefining Exploitation: Self-Employed Workers’ Movements in India's Garments and Trash Collection Industries1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 April 2016

Rina Agarwala
Rina Agarwala*
Affiliation:
Johns Hopkins University
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Abstract

This article examines how self-employed workers are organizing in the garments and waste collection industries in India. Although the question of who is profiting from self-employed workers’ labor is complex, the cases outlined in this paper highlight telling instances of how some self-employed workers are organizing as workers. They are fighting labor exploitation by redefining the concept to include additional exploitation axes (from the state and middle class) and forms (including sexual). In doing so, they are redefining potential solutions, including identities and material benefits, to fit their unique needs. By expanding the category of “workers” beyond those defined by a narrow focus on a standard employer-employee relationship, these movements are also fighting exclusion from earlier labor protections by increasing the number of entitled beneficiaries. These struggles provide an important corrective to contemporary analyses of labor politics that focus too heavily on the precarious nature of employer-employee relationships and too little on broader definitions of work, exploitation, and protection. These broader definitions better represent the world's mass of vulnerable workers and are being articulated from below.

Type
Precarious Labor in Global Perspectives
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 89: Precarious Labor in Global Perspectives , Spring 2016 , pp. 107 - 130
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc. 2016 

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Footnotes

1.

I am grateful to Ryan Nielsen for his excellent research assistance.

References

NOTES

2. For an excellent discussion of “exploitation,” see Wright, Erik Olin, “The Shadow of Exploitation in Weber's Class Analysis,” American Sociological Review 67 (2002), 832–853 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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4. Rina Agarwala, Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India (Cambridge, 2013).

5. David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford, 2005); Arne Kalleberg, Good Jobs, Bad Jobs: The Rise of Polarized and Precarious Employment Systems in the United States, 1970s to 2000s (New York, 2013); Guy Standing, The Precariat: The New Dangerous Classes (Huntington, 2011).

6. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, 1st Beacon paperback ed. (Boston, 2001).

7. Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. I (London, 1976).

8. Agarwala, Rina, “The State and Labor in Transnational Activism: The Case of India,” Journal of Industrial Relations 54 (2012). 443–458 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Agarwala, Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India; Rina Agarwala, “A Second Marriage? An Intersection of Marxism and Feminism among India's Informal Workers,” in Handbook on Gender in South Asia, ed. Leela Fernandes (London, 2013), 220–233.

9. Jennifer Jihye Chun, Organizing at the Margins: The Symbolic Politics of Labor in South Korea and the United States (Ithaca, 2009); Ruth Milkman, L.A. Story: Immigrant Workers and the Future of the U.S. Labor Movement (New York, 2006); Ruth Milkman and Ed Ott, eds., New Labor in New York: Precarious Workers and the Future of the Labor Movement (Ithaca, 2014); John Cross, Informal Politics: Street Vendors and The State in Mexico City (Stanford, 1998); Janice Fine, Worker Centers: Organizing Communities at the Edge of the Dream (Ithaca, 2006); Agarwala, Rina, “Informal Workers’ Struggles in Eight Countries,” Brown Journal of World Affairs 20 (2014), 251–263 Google Scholar.

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15. Alejandro Portes and Kelly Hoffman, “Latin American Class Structures: Their Composition and Change During the Neoliberal Era,” paper presented at the Annual Meeting of American Sociological Association, Chicago, 2002.

16. NSSO, Employment and Unemployment Situation in India (2004–05) (Calcutta, 2005).

17. ILO-WIEGO, Women and Men in the Informal Economy: A Statistical Picture (2013). Geneva.

18. Wage differentials were determined less by skill and more by product, so weaving fine fabric garnered greater prestige and wages than regular fabric. Rajnarayan Chandavarkar, The Origins of Industrial Capitalism in India: Business Strategies and the Working Classes in Bombay, 1900–1940 (Cambridge, 1994).

19. These laws include the 1947 Industrial Disputes Act (requires large, formal, industrial establishments to obtain government permission for layoffs and closures and protects workers’ right to form associations and unions); the 1948 Factories Act (regulates factory working conditions regarding sanitation, health, and safety); the 1948 Minimum Wages Act (protects workers’ wages); the 1965 Bonus Act (guarantees bonuses to those working more than 30 days); and the 1948 Employees’ State Insurance Act, the 1956 Employees Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act (provides workers with old-age pension and insurance in sickness, injury, maternity leave, and death).

20. H. Vanwersch, The Bombay Textile Strike 1982–83 (Delhi, 1992).

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22. Small, unregulated powerloom establishments are defined as those with less than four powerlooms, employing less than twenty workers.

23. C.P. Chandrasekhar, “Textile Industry — I.: Growth of Decentralised Sector,” The Economic Times, August 9, 1982.

24. Indira Hirway, “Labour Market Adjustment and Female Workers: Global Production and Expiry of Quotas in India's Textile and Garments Industry,” in Labour in Global Production Networks in India, ed. Anne Posthuma and Dev Nathan (New Delhi, 2010), 166–189; Vanwersch, The Bombay Textile Strike 1982–83.

25. An additional constraint on mill production at this time was the 1974 Multi-Fibre Arrangement (MFA), an international quota regime that restricted developing countries from exporting textiles, yarn, and apparel to protect developed countries’ textile industries. The MFA ended in 2005.

26. Liberalization policies affecting Indian textile/garments included the 1998 Open General License List liberalizing the import of textiles; the National 2000 Textile Policy to develop textile exports by fostering competitiveness, foreign direct investment, R&D on technological innovations, and sustaining traditional craftspeople; and the 1995 phase-out of the MFA.

27. Sundar Shetty. India's Textile and Apparel Industry: Growth Potential and Trade and Investment Opportunities Staff Research Study, Publication 3401. Office of Industries, US International Trade Commission, Washington DC (2001).

28. Indira Hirway, “Labour Market Adjustment and Female Workers,” 166–189.

29. Anannya Bhattacharjee, Working Conditions in Garment Manufacturing and Exporting Companies in Gurgaon (New Delhi, 2012).

30. NOIDA stands for New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, a planned city in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh and part of the National Capital Region of India.

31. Interview, January 14, 2013.

32. Interview, January 2, 2013.

33. According to my interviews, self-employed workers in the export garment sector tend to be skilled, better compensated, and mostly men. They work seasonally, relying also on agricultural income. They are not yet organized in the unions interviewed, and government labor officers reported they do not interact with them. Due to time and resource constraints, I was unable to get further details on these workers.

34. AITUC stands for the All-India Trade Union Congress.

35. Jenkins, Jean, “Organizing ‘Spaces of Hope’: Union Formation by Indian Garment Workers,” British Journal of Industrial Relations 51 (2013): 623–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36. Interview, January 14, 2013.

37. Bose, Anu and Blore, Ian, “Public Waste and Private Property: An Enquiry into the Economics of Solid Waste in Calcutta,” Public Administration and Development 13 (1993), 1–15 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.; Manuel Rosaldo, “Revolution in the Garbage Dump: The Political and Economic Foundations of the Colombian Recycler Movement (1987–2013),” in American Sociological Association Annual Meeting (New York, 2013); Birkbeck, Chris, “Self-Employed Proletarians in an Informal Factory: The Case of Cali's Garbage Dumps,” World Development 6 (1978), 1173–1185 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38. Agarwala, Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India.

39. The card does not qualify workers for protection under the labor laws described above.

40. Interview, Manisha Desai, SWaCH outreach manager, July 29, 2013; Interview, Lakshmi Narayan, KKPKP general secretary, August 12, 2013; interview, Maitreyi Shankar, KKPKP treasurer, August 5, 2013.

41. Interview, August 12, 2013.

42. Yujiro, Hayami, Dikshit, A.K., and Mishra, S.N., “Waste Pickers and Collectors in Delhi: Poverty and Environment in an Urban Informal Sector,” Journal of Development Studies 42 (2006), 41–69 Google Scholar.

43. SWaCH stands for Solid Waste Collection and Handling. The cooperative's official name is the SWaCH Seva Sahakari Sanstha Maryadit.

44. Interview, Manisha Desai, SWaCH outreach manager, July 29, 2013.

45. Interview Lakshmi Narayan, KKPKP general secretary, August 12, 2013.

46. Interview, Maitreyi Shankar, KKPKP treasurer, August 5, 2013. Emphasis added by author.

47. Interview, August 3, 2013.

48. US International Trade Commission, India's Textile and Apparel Industry: Growth Potential and Trade and Investment Opportunities.

49. A union federation is a central organization that has unions as members. SEWA is to date the only nontraditional union federation to attain this status.

50. Martha Chen and Donna Doane, “Informality in South Asia: A Review,” WIEGO Working Paper No. 4 (2008).

51. Interview, January 19, 2013.

52. MKS stands for Mahila Kamgar Sangatam, or Women Workers Organization.

53. Interview, January 17, 2013.

54. Interview in MKS offices, January 17, 2013.

55. Agarwala, Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India.

56. Ibid.

57. Interview, January 19, 2013.

58. Interview with headloader members, January 19, 2013.

59. Interview, January 19, 2013.

60. Interview, January 20, 2013.

61. Interview, Manisha Desai, SWaCH outreach manager, July 29, 2013; interview, Lakshmi Narayan, KKPKP general secretary, August 12, 2013.

62. Agarwala, Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India.

63. Interview, Ajit Abhyankar, CITU president, Pune, August 9, 2013. CITU stands for the Centre of Indian Trade Unions and is affiliated to the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M).

64. Interview, January 20, 2013.

65. Ibid.

66. Ibid.

67. Ibid.

68. Interview, January 18, 2013.

69. Interview, August 12, 2013.