Question

Follow the news regularly and collect information on the issues that trade unions are taking up. Discuss in the context of globalisation.

Answer 1

I. Key Issues Raised by Indian Trade Unions

A joint platform of major central trade unions, including CITU, INTUC, AITUC, and HMS, regularly mobilises nationwide worker actions over these primary structural grievances:

1. Repeal of the Four Labour Codes: Strong opposition to the government’s consolidated labour codes, arguing they were passed without tripartite social dialogue and favour corporate flexibility over worker security.
2. Aggressive Privatisation and Monetisation: Active resistance against selling off strategic Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) and policies like the National Monetisation Pipeline.
3. Rise of Contractualization: Demands to end the “contract system” for permanent jobs and implement equal pay for equal work.
4. Inadequate Social Security: Pressing for a mandatory national minimum wage, a guaranteed minimum pension, and the expansion of the rural employment guarantee scheme (MGNREGA).

II. Discussion in the Context of Globalisation

Globalisation has fundamentally tilted the balance of power away from organised labour toward transnational corporate capital.

1. The Decline of Union Bargaining Power: Because capital is highly mobile globally while labour is restricted by borders, multinational corporations can easily threaten to relocate factories to countries with cheaper labour and weaker regulations. This forces developing nations into a “race to the bottom,” weakening labour laws to attract investment.
2. The Rise of the Informal and Gig Economy: Global technological integration has given birth to the gig economy (e.g., app-based delivery and ride-hailing drivers). Trade unions are structurally struggling to organise these workers because corporations label them “independent partners” rather than regular employees, completely denying them standard social security, pension schemes, and labour protection.
3. The Weakening of State Support: Under globalised economic models, the state often shifts its role from protecting workers’ rights to acting as a facilitator for corporate ease of doing business, interpreting traditional worker strikes as disruptions to national industrial growth.