Chirayu Jain
The BJP’s new labor reforms, the construction industry, and the mounting challenges for India’s trade unions
Like the tax and agrarian legislation, the four new Labour Codes—the Labour Code on Wages of 2019, the Labour Code on Industrial Relations of 2020, Labour Code on Social Security of 2020 and Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code of 2020—strip workers of bargaining power through over-centralization. Their passage, which consolidates 44 different pieces of labor legislation, came without any meaningful debate or discussion.
Since coming to power in 2014, India’s right-wing government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has introduced sweeping reforms aimed at strengthening the union government at the expense of the states, and catering to large corporations over smaller establishments and workers.
The 2017 Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the 2020 Farm Laws represent distinct ways with which these reforms have been dealt by local governments. The former, which centralized India’s indirect tax regime, was initially met with stiff opposition from the states. Over time, however, this opposition ebbed due to the difficulty of unifying against the government-controlled GST council. By contrast, farmer-led opposition to the agrarian reforms, which would have likely weakened farmers’ bargaining power and left them at the mercy of corporations, was so vociferous that even the proud Modi government was forced to repeal the laws.
Which of these paths will characterize the fate of the recently passed labor reforms is yet to be determined. Like the tax and agrarian legislation, the four new Labour Codes—the Labour Code on Wages of 2019, the Labour Code on Industrial Relations of 2020, Labour Code on Social Security of 2020 and Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code of 2020—strip workers of bargaining power through over-centralization. Their passage, which consolidates 44 different pieces of labor legislation, came without any meaningful debate or discussion.
Together, the reforms illustrate the Modi government’s attempt to weaken existing structures of formal employment and loosen regulations, with the ultimate effect of shifting power to large employers. Despite their enormous significance, opposition to the reforms has thus far remained lukewarm. In what follows, I take the construction industry as one avenue for studying the context and consequences of the Labour Codes. Reflecting on the experience of class among India’s building workers, I then consider the likelihood of successful resistance.
Background
After agriculture and domestic work, the construction industry employs the largest proportion of India’s workforce: 10 percent of all registrations in the union government’s social scheme portal declared their occupation as construction in March of this year.1 Of those workers, 75 percent are male, approximately 90 percent earn less than Rs. 10,000 (roughly $132 USD) per month, and nearly 77 percent come from lower-caste or tribal backgrounds. These features have characterized India’s construction industry for decades….
After the truth-shower 