Labour Transitions and Workers Manifestos: How new-age scenarios are catalysing change in workforce?  

By Tikender Panwar and Sandeep Chachra

The gains made by the working-class post second World War started fading away in the post liberalization era. Not just the basic mode of production underwent metamorphosis, the density of the organized working class diminished substantially in India. In the post 1990s period, informal employment became the principal mode of employment. More than 90% of our workers are employed informally, currently.

In this time, the state and its apparatus meant to provide some of the basic human rights needs like education, health, water, and other public service utilities also gradually changed its character. Several of these services were either privatized hedgehog or outsourced. While such a shift dampened labour absorption, it also was responsible for pauperizing the working population, who now had to shed more from their earnings in getting some basic services and meeting the costs of reproduction.

India Employment Report for the period 2000-2012 stated employment in India experienced an annual growth rate of 1.6 per cent, while gross value added grew at 6.2 per cent. Whereas the corresponding figures for 2012-2019 were 6.7 per cent, and 0.01 per cent, respectively.

Why did this happen?

This speaks about the transition taking place in the production process and further informalization of the labour.  Employment declined in agriculture, so that should have been absorbed in the manufacturing or other sectors. However, that did not happen. Manufacturing remained stagnant and there was literally negative growth in employment experienced during this period. Adoption of capital-intensive technologies in major sectors played havoc with employment generation in the organised sector.

The impact of this transition has been borne most by women, and communities which have historically been marginalised. Women were pushed into the informal sector in large numbers. Home based and care-based work has increased during this period. Women largely account for the increase in self-employment and unpaid family work. Nearly two thirds of the incremental employment after 2019 comprised self-employed workers, among whom unpaid (women) family workers predominate.

Digitalization and introduction of new technologies are changing the structure of industrial employment. There has been a rapid introduction of digitally mediated gig and platform work, which are algorithmically controlled by the platforms and have brought about new features in control of the labour process. Increasingly, platform and gig work have been expanding, but it is, to a large extent, the extension of informal work, with hardly any social security provisions. Disparities are predominant in the labour markets across states and regions.

India is expected to have a migration rate of 40 % in 2030, which will further contribute to the informal workforce in the cities and also enhance their precarity.

Caste based work continues to haunt, despite de-jure forbiddance. De facto it continues to manifest across both urban and rural geographies. This needs to be annihilated.

Climate change induced disasters have further increased the precarity of the workers and the informal sector is the worst hit with losses of wages, health and habitats. It has also induced large-scale migration to the urban centres where the workers are forced to live in squatter settlements. Housing and livelihoods become major issues in the urban centres.

On May day as the working people across the globe create their manifestos, it is important that strategies are built to ensure democratic and equitable futures.

Not just demanding the role of the state ensuring that the Constitutional goals enshrined are met – that also includes the ‘right to work’, as a fundamental right, but also there is need to innovatively intervene at the current conjuncture for more collectivised and cooperatives forms of work as steps to nurture solidarity economies.

Such paths will create collaborations, enable outreach to the bottom of the pyramid, enable redistribution and instil a sense of collective welfare.

The women’s world of work needs great transitions.  This is not only limited to securing safe and secure workplaces for women, ensuring decent and equal wages, but also to ensure redistribution of care work, at home and beyond.

Let us resolve to build new synergies on this May Day for more secure and liveable futures.

(Sandeep Chachra is Executive Director, ActionAid Association. Tikender Panwar is former Deputy-Mayor of Shimla The views expressed above are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organisations represented)