India: Workers' Rights in a New Economic Order

Abstract

With traditional forms of collective bargaining failing in the face of rapid corporate restructuring, what perspectives can the unions evolve to ensure their survival and growth? This paper argues that the labour movement has a powerful stake in shaping the agenda of corporate governance, both because implicit contracts are impossible to enforce without a role in strategic decision-making, and in the sense that public corporations can no longer be conceived merely as shareholder domains. However, in a country like India where the majority of wage earners are unorganised, the workers' rights clause will have a major role to play.