“Low labour cost, along with flexibility in labour use, has become a key source of competitive advantage for firms. As external competition intensifies, the domestic industry has come under great pressure to restructure itself, to become more competitive and to adopt flexible policies with regard to production and labour. With a view to increasing global competitiveness, investors are moving more towards countries that either have low labour costs, or are shifting to informal employment arrangements. These changes create an entirely different political-economic environment for workers around the world. Greater international mobility of capital relative to labour puts workers from a given location at an immediate disadvantage, both in terms of bargaining power with the owners of capital (whose threat to move gains greater credibility) and with respect to the State<!--(Milberg 2004)-->. Thus the removal of domestic entry barriers and movement of capital to areas of cheap labour have caused intensification of domestic competition in many developing countries— especially those with surplus labour supply and those where labour is a major factor of production. This has been accentuated by potential investors citing the lack of flexibility in hiring and laying off workers as a concern, while targeting a developing country in which to invest.”
“Optimism with regard to labour as an agency of has been replaced by pessimism that sees little prospect of workers acting on their own behalf.”
Neethi Padmanabhan
“Trade unions do not consider workers from smaller units as workers in the formal sense, or they often cannot access workers inside special industrial zones, behind walls of security. Workers too somet...”
Neethi Padmanabhan
“On November 20, the issued a notification allowing women to work night shifts (7 p.m. to 6 a.m.) in all factories registered under the Factories Act, 1948. [...] In principle, this is a welcome move. ...”
Neethi Padmanabhan
“In a sector where there is systemic failure and worker-management relations are turbulent, putting the onus of worker safety and security in the hands of the management alone can be risky. Moreover, i...”
Neethi Padmanabhan
“Clearly, the disparity between the prospects of win-alls and lose-alls maps perfectly with their respective general socio-economic conditions as determined by class, caste and . The current pandemic c...”
Neethi Padmanabhan