Fewer flags at factory gates

Much of this change and uncertainty has to do with the fact that Mumbai itself is in a state of flux. From being a predominantly manufacturing and trading city, it has metamorphosed into a financial and services centre, surrounded by partially dispersed manufacturing units. This has, in turn, given birth to a new, unconventional form of trade unionism one that is characterised by the emergence of “corporate campaigners” and those who consider themselves a part of a “new labour movement”.

Among the practising trade unionists of the city, many old ideas have given way to modern pragmatism. For instance, there is a new conciliatory tone to capital among some thinkers. Suchitra Kulkarni, an economist affiliated to Elphinstone College, Mumbai, believes in reconstructing the future of Mumbai’s textile mills in active collaboration with capital. She argues that the current state of the textile mills in Mumbai can be better described as a stalemate rather than a crisis. According to Kulkarni, re-adjusting Mumbai’s textile industry to the needs of the market is the only effective solution.

She is obviously not alone in her conciliatory approach. Many new generation trade unionists, as Kim Moody points out in his book, Workers in a Lean World: Unions in the International Economy-1997, have also embraced a new `realism’ that says that competitive business considerations must be adhered to, that cooperation with management is the means to that end and that partnership with national or regional capital is the road to employment and stabilisation. Another idea that seems to be fading out is the unions’ responsibility of preparing workers for a political revolution. For example, Meena Menon, activist of Closed Textile Mills Action Committee, does not believe in party-affiliated unionism. When the very survival of industry is at stake, she feels unions need to adopt a more pragmatic approach rather than divide workers over their respective party affiliations.

Some unions in Mumbai are changing with the changing structure of global capital. As the leader of Hindustan Lever Employees’ Union, Bennet D’Costa, puts it, the nature of trade unions depend on the nature of the management.

If the management is dynamic, the unions have no option but to take a leaf out of its book. The Hindustan Lever union is clear about its methodology. It does not shy away from using the most modern communication technology in its fight against global capital.

Similarly, the Blue Star Workers Federation has tried to work in tandem with the international labour movement. Its president, N. Vasudevan, was one among the two signatories to the International Workers Solidarity Committee’s resolution against the Multilateral Agreement on Investment which was passed this year at the ILO meet. Likewise, the manner in which the Kamani Employees Union recently opposed the merger of Kamani Electrical underscored a new phase in the Indian trade union movement.

However, the white collar workers of Mumbai’s booming service sector like banking and insurance, continue to practise conventional trade unionism in their own style of course. In fact, traditional trade union practices like strikes and go-slow, which were once the prerogative of the factory worker, are now increasingly being adopted by those in the banking, insurance and aviation sectors. Though such action has been successful from time to time, the widespread public resentment that these strikes have generated indicates that the days of conventional trade unionism may soon be over.

Mumbai remakes itself

For some, it was like excavating the ruins of a glorious labour movement. For others, it was a time to deconstruct modern history, off-load the ideological baggage of the past and accept new realities.

The recent seminar on `Work and Workers in Mumbai: 1930s to 1990s’, organised by Alice Thorner, of the Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, Paris, Dr Sujata Patel of Pune University, and Darryl D’Monte, a senior journalist, established that even as the working class and its culture as a political idea was dead, workers in flesh and blood continued to exist, although more fragmented and disempowered than before.

In the present transition of the city from a centre of manufacturing and trade to that of financial services there has been a systematic segmentation of what was believed to be a homogeneous working class.

To add to this fragmentation, regional and religious identities have also surfaced. Thomas Bloom Hansen from Roskilde University of Denmark said that “Muslims for decades have been marginalised in the organised industrial sector….” He talked about “identity strategies” being developed by Muslim workers in Mumbai especially after the 1992-93 communal riots and the subsequent aggressive attempts adopted by the Sangh Parivar to stigmatise them.

Similarly, he talked about the struggle for identity among migrant labourers from Uttar Pradesh and the southern states.

All the speakers at the three-day seminar highlighted the fragmentation process that is manifesting itself. As Mumbai-based academic and labour activist Jairus Banaji pointed out, “cultural diversity is an empirical reality of working class, the political challenge lies in evolving a language that cuts across the identities”. His observations represented the views of many Mumbai trade unionists who had felt helpless during the days of communal and caste tensions.Stephen Sherlock, whose earlier study on class formation in Mumbai remained a subject of some discussion, talked about the changing profile of the city: “A capitalist economy is a dynamic process of constant change and the economic character of Mumbai has never been static, but the last two decades have seen a particularly rapid remaking of the city.” This change in the composition of the city, in his opinion, is not de-industrialisation but merely a spatial relocation of manufacturing activities. For labour, it means the breaking down of large work places like textile mills and the growth of the informal sector and casual employment.This is yet another dimension of fragmentation that trade unions have failed to cope with. Sherlock stressed the need for re-examining many ideas about the relationship between the Indian economy and the world capitalist system.