Centre for Education and Communication (CEC), the institution that brings out the Labour file is a centre for worker`s education and participatory labour research. CEC has taken note of Indian economy`s integration into the global market, its export oriented growth and the changes taking place in the structure of industry and agriculture. We have decided to systematically monitor the consequent changes in the structure of employment and the grave impact it would have on about 314 million workforce in India.

The workforce operate in an atmosphere significantly different from that existed earlier. They have to face technological advances, forced lay offs, massive retrenchments and abuse of rights. Worst affected are the workers in the unorganised and informal sectors. The export oriented production in primary sectors, like agriculture, fisheries and forestry, throws millions of workers into survival crisis. Some sectors are getting obliterated creating migrant workers who can any longer use their skills. Government`s industrial policy reduces the scope of state`s intervention for the welfare of the workers. Simultaneously, the policies give unprecedented freedom to the employers to unilaterally decide matters affecting the workforce.

The World Development Report 1995 by World Bank titled, "Workers in an Integrating World", though questionable in many respects, is helpful in locating the labour issue in global context. The report estimates the Global Labour Force now to be at 2.5 billion men and women. It projects a massive growth in the number of people who should work to earn their living, a Worldwide increase of 1.2 billion by 2025. Ninety-nine percent of this growth is predicted to occur in today`s low and middle income countries where, more than a billion individuals live with one dollar or less a day. The report talks about two shifts in the world economies that will have direct bearing on the out look of the workers in the years to come; (a). reduced governmental intervention in markets, and (b). increased integration of trade and capital flows, both within and between nations.

It may also be recalled that about 37000 TNCs, with_more than 170000 subsidiaries outside their home country, exert overwhelming influence over the global market, trade and capital flows. In 1992, the TNCs have generated, sales outside their country for $ 5.5 trillion. Their true influence, in actual terms, goes much beyond what the figures suggest. TNCs who control one-third of the world`s private sector productive assets, reduce the control to the bare minimum the nationstates would have over their own economics. Mostly, they keep the high technology stages of production in the northern home countries, and shift to the developing countries the highly polluting and labour intensive stages of production.

The operations of the TNCs and the interventions of the Brettonwood trio - IMF, WB and GATT/WTO - have resulted in a new international division of labour. The employment is less stable than ever before. There is reduction in the permanent employment and an increase in the casual and informal employment. The workforce has also to live with fluctuating wages, altering hours of work and denial of Trade Union rights.

The structural changes in the employment of workers in India have got a direct bearing on the drastic and devastating changes taking place in the international division of labour. While keenly following the Indian labour scene, we intend to place it in the context of global developments. The Labour File, we envisage as an instrument in disseminating the information we collect to the workers organisations, policy making institutions and intellectuals. We hope that our effort will contribute to the greater awareness of the situation, help, in some way, in enhancing the dignity of labour, and in evolving alternate methods to protect the rights.

Each issue of the Labour File, published monthly, will concentrate on a particular topic. This issue has two special articles, one on the UNCTAD Report and the other on the ILO`s World "Employment Report. Besides the special articles, each issue will have provisions for brief stories struggles and experiments from the fields, reports from parliament and judiciary, interviews and literature surveys.

J John, Mukul Sharma

October 20, 1995