Old unions, new battles

India's labour unions are at a crossroads in the age of IT and gig work. They are adapting to new-age sectors' demands but penetration has been limited, write SHINE JACOB & SHIVA RAJORA

- SHINE JACOB & SHIVA RAJORA

A 37-day strike by around 1,400 workers at Samsung Electronics' manufacturing unit near Chennai has put the spotlight on labour unions in India. Some media outlets framed it as a battle for the very survival of these organisations – over a century after India's first trade union, the Madras Labour Union, was formed in the same city by BP Wadia in 1918.

Although the Samsung dispute was resolved with government intervention, it raises questions about the future of trade unions in a country where liberalisation and globalisation have transformed the workplace. As industries like information technology (IT) and gig work gain prominence, are unions becoming relics of a bygone era?

“They (unions) are out of sync with the changing workspace,” says K R Shyam Sundar, labour economist and professor at XLRI, Jamshedpur. “However, there is still space for trade unions in India. Of 480 million workers, only 5-7 per cent are unionised. Unions need to penetrate the vast unorganised sectors like anganwadi workers. In some Latin American countries, even street vendors are part of the trade union framework.”

In India, only 12 are recognised as central trade union organisations, including Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), and the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (Citu). According to data shared by the International Labour Organization (ILO), only 19.8 per cent of workers were unionised in 2017, placing the country 55th globally. Yet, union membership had grown from just 12 per cent in 2000.