The Economic Survey 2002-2003 notes that the number of industrial strikes and lockouts came down by half to 321 during the first nine months of 2002 from 674 in the previous year. Up to September 2002, industrial strikes dipped to 142 from 372 in 2001. Provisional information provided by the Labour Bureau confirms this trend in 2003 too.

The declining strike rate raises three important questions. Has labour, in particular the organised sector, become less militant (assuming that strike is the most important barometer to measure the militancy of workers)? Has the organised sector labour lost its potential to assume a lead role in social and political transformation? Has labour lost its capacity to pursue the social and political construction of solidarity, particularly in the absence of unifying ideologies? It would be interesting to pursue these questions from the experiences of Indian labour in 2003.

The year 2003 started off with the united struggle of workers against the privatisation of Singareni coal mines in Andhra Pradesh. By the time the struggle ended in February, workers not only managed to protect their rights but also to stall the hurried privatisation of the mines. Most of the reported struggles of the workers in 2003 were against privatisation of public sector companies. Notable among other such struggles were the strike by workers of ITIs in Punjab against the move by the Punjab government to privatise 12 ITIs in the state; struggle of workers of the National Fertilizers Corporation at Nangal , Punjab to protest against the proposed disinvestment of the company; struggle of employees of the Fertilizers and Chemicals Travancore (FACT) against privatisation and the workers laid a siege to the Udyogamandal division of the company protesting the visit of officials from the Indo-Gulf Fertilizer Corporation to inspect the facilities; strike by junior doctors of 10 government medical colleges in Andhra Pradesh against the privatisation of medical education and hospital services in the state, including the Civil Hospital built in the memory of Jallianwala Bagh martyrs; workers belonging to HPCL and BPCL holding nationwide strike in August to oppose the privatisation of the two oil PSUs and HPCL employees prevented Reliance Industries officials from entering HPCL’s refinery premises in Mumbai.

The year 2003 also witnessed unprecedented attempts at forging unity of workers at the national level against the forces of globalisation. All the major trade unions of the country, except the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), mobilised thousands of workers for the march to Parliament in Delhi on February 26 in protest against the economic polices of the government. On 25 March, a strike was called by 26 trade unions of HPCL and BPCL under the banner of National United Forum Against Privatisation of Oil PSUs. On 18 August, hundreds of employees and workers from different sectors and labour federations staged a demonstration in front of the Supreme Court against its ruling on right to strike and demanded a Constitutional amendment to negate the judgment. On 21 May the nationwide strike called by central trade unions and national federations demanding an end to privatisation of profit-making and potentially viable public sector undertakings was joined by about 40 million workers from the public and private sectors, including central and state government employees, those working in factories, banks, insurance companies, post offices, ports and docks and defence production units.

However, most of these struggles were from the public sector enterprises. Individual struggles, including strikes were reported from the Bangalore plant of Motor Industries Company Limited (MICO) and from the Ambattur unit of Dunlop. Workers in the jute and tea sector also offered organised resistances throughout the year against closures, denial of statutory benefits and work intensification.

The above instances show that workers are not docile. Labour militancy should be seen in relation to the socio-political context in which they are placed today. The occupational, sectoral and social composition of the labour force has changed in a way detrimental to the interests of labour. Aggressive strategies by the government and the employers have weakened labour’s bargaining position. Employers have largely taken over the initiative in an enterprise by imposing new enterprise-oriented frameworks and thereby curtailing democratic space for workers.

In this context, labour’s defensive strategy could be an energy conserving mechanism. Historically, labour militancy has been explained to be moving in cycles. It has a positive correlation with increasing repression and labour becomes militant as repression increases.

Labour construct solidarity largely through its engagement with the employer and the state, by either taking a confrontationist position or being accommodative. Similarly, labour interacts with society either in a leadership role or in a partnership role. In these engagements labour builds solidarity with other labour organisations or other forces in society.

Over a period of three to four decades, the environment in which labour finds itself has changed significantly in India. Globalisation initiated and controlled by the powerful bloc of multinational companies, international financial institutions and industrialised countries has thrust upon workers a global division of labour that rests on flexibility and contractualisation, and undermining of labour rights including freedom of association and collective bargaining. We also witness a progressive withdrawal of the Indian State from its pact with labour on equity, trade union rights, employment relations and social security. Further, the collapse of Soviet Union and other socialist governments led to the deficiency of a visible model, a central ideology and a lead agency for social and political transformation. Meanwhile, we find in the civil society - a space distinct from market and the state – a number of new influential actors namely, social movements; NGOs and non-party organisations; mass-based organisations and public policy or advocacy networks.  These actors are networked internationally through a multiple layer of linkages. It may be recalled that the interface between the State and the market was largely a domain of labour. Finally, despite participation of global unions in the intensive and visible anti-globalisation struggles that began at Seattle in the US in the wake of the November 1999 conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), globalization has not strengthened international labour solidarity.

Very few studies have been made to understand how labour, in the above mentioned context, construct and deconstruct labour solidarity and struggles in India. The strategic advantage of labour has not been lost even in the era of globalisation since trade unions represent organised articulations of contradictions at the level of production relations. This is to be seen over and against social movements, social organisations and NGOs which are articulations of non-class contradictions mostly as people-power bloc/globalisation contradictions.

It would be too early to predict the decreasing militancy of labour and the irrelevance of labour in social transformation. Moreover, there are signs of an engagement between labour organisations and other actors like dalit movements, peace movements, environmental movements, women’s movements, movements of victims of development, people’s science movements, student movements, youth movements and NGOs in India.

The current issue of Labour File captures glimpses of labour scene in India in 2003. The lead article provides images of women workers from their work situations. The articles on employment and social security deal with the trends in 2003. The year also saw consistent disinvestment of Public Sector Units by the government. This issue covers the privatisation of Oil Sector PSUs, Ports and Docks and Water. As follow ups to two of our earlier issues, we have articles on the crisis of Darjeeling Tea industry and the labour sessions in World Social Forum 2004.