Do labour laws protect labour in India? union experiences of workplace regulations in Maharashtra, India

The debate over labour market regulations in India is highly polarised. Advocates of labour market deregulation suggest that the labour law framework in the country confers disproportionate powers on workers and trade unions in the formal sector of the economy, resulting in industrial conflicts and poor productivity. Using workplace union survey data from the state of Maharashtra, this paper examines the veracity of these claims. Maharashtra is recognised as a state with a broadly pro-worker labour law framework. We find that even pro-worker labour laws at best offer only weak protection to workers and unions in the formal sector establishments. Unions find themselves increasingly vulnerable to employer hostility. We discuss these findings in the context of the role of state and judiciary in employment relations and of union links with political parties

Labour-management partnership in the non-union retail sector

Analysts and policy advocates have argued that a meaningful labour-management partnership can be established in the absence of trade unions. In this paper we have examined employee outcomes of partnership in a medium-sized non-union retail firm, regarded as one of the ‘best practice’ cases of non-union partnership by the Involvement and Participation Association (IPA) of the UK. We have also compared the employee outcomes from our case study firm with those from a representative sample of retail sector workers from unionized and non-union retail firms in the UK. Findings indicate that compared to employees in other retail-sector firms, workers in the ‘best practice’ partnership firm were significantly disadvantaged with respect to their influence over workplace and policy decisions with little evidence of ‘mutual gains’ as claimed by partnership advocates

Partnership and organizing: an empirical assessment of two contrasting approaches to union revitalization in the UK

The Trades Union Congress (TUC) in Britain has been advocating two contrasting approaches to union revitalization namely: ‘labour–management partnership’ and ‘union organizing’. Using a case study of a public services union this article examines empirically the prospects of union revival offered by these two contrasting approaches. Public services with relatively high union density should offer better prospects for union revival through partnership. However, the authors’ findings indicate that even in public services, partnership was not associated with management’s support for union recruitment, better facility time provisions for union representatives, lower worker grievances or union membership gains. Rank-and-file organizing, on the other hand, was associated with lower worker grievances, greater worker satisfaction with the union, higher worker involvement in union activities and union membership gains. Overall, the findings question the ‘mutual gains’ assertions of partnership advocates and lend support to the critics of partnership who propose an alternative organizing approach to union revitalization

Genotypic variation for seed protein and mineral content among post-rainy season-grown sorghum genotypes

Sorghum is an important staple food crop of Asian and African countries. As a “poor man's crop”, it provides dietary starch, protein, and some vitamins and minerals. Minerals are important for various physiological functions in the human body. As a major staple crop of central and southern Indian provinces, sorghum landraces are a source of supplementary micronutrients. Concentrations of micronutrients and protein and yield parameters were studied using 112 local landraces and varieties. Univariate analysis revealed wide variation for iron (1.10–9.54 mg 100 g−1), zinc (1.12–7.58 mg 100 g−1), protein (3.50–12.60%), and grain yield (2.50–76.50 g) among the landraces. High estimates of genetic/phenotypic coefficient of variation, and genetic advances over the mean were identified for landraces and varieties. High heritabilities were also identified for yield and mineral content. Correlation estimates among the genotypes indicated that grain yield was positively correlated with copper and protein with copper and zinc. Cluster analysis based on Euclidean distance resolved all of the genotypes into three major clusters. The wide range of values with high heritability estimates may favor the use of these landraces in recombination breeding to improve nutritional quality in sorghum

Why Are Some Union Organizing Campaigns More Successful Than Others?

This paper reports a study of two union organizing campaigns in the higher education sector. Using mobilization theory, we tried to explore why one campaign was more successful than the other as measured by membership growth and recruitment of activists. We found that in the more successful campaign, the union was perceived as more effective in voicing workers' concerns, generated greater social cohesion and union identification amongst employees, was more successful in convincing employees that the university management was to blame for their problems and promoted amongst employees a stronger sense of union instrumentality. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2005.