Evolution of Trade Unions in India

Indian Labour Movement.

• Living conditions of workers – miserable.
• Establishment of Bombay Mill Hands Association – 1890 – president – N.M. Lokahnde .
• Objective –
  • Invite attention of government and public to many grievances of the textile workers of Bombay.
  • But they were not a trade union as they had no
    • Membership
    • Funds
    • Rules
    • No trade unions could grow – poverty and illiteracy.

1^st World War period

• 1^st World War – sparked off  trade union movement in India.
• Sharp rise in prices, cost of living => wage lag
• Indian workers launched a series of strikes from 1918 to 1920.
• >200 strikes in first 6 months of 1920.
• Rising cost of living, ruthless exploitation and suppression, political agitation against foreign rule, establishment of ILO in 1919 => AITUC in 1920.
• AITUC had 64 trade unions when it was formed in 1920.

1920-29

• Features :
  • Formation of AITUC
  • Expansion in the no. of trade unions and membership
  • Enactment of Indian Trade Unions Act, 1926
  • Increase in freq of industrial disputes => work stoppages
  • Split in AITUC

Formation of AITUC

• Direct result of establishment of ILO in 1919.
• Formed to represent Indian labour at International Labour Conference.
• British Trade Union Congress and American Federation of labour were setup – individual trade union operated in different contexts => felt the need to establish a central federation.
• Indian trade union => central came first, then individual trade unions in different industries.
• 1^st president of AITUC – Lala Lajpat Rai

Expansion of the no. of trade unions and membership

• No. of  trade unions continued to increase.
• Concentrated in the provinces of Bombay, Madras, Bengal.
• Considerable trade union activities – Railways, shipping, cotton, jute, mining, engineering, printing and paper.

Enactment of Indian Trade Union Act, 1926

• Need for nominating the workers’ representatives in ILO, Indian Trade Unions Act, 1926 was passed
• Provided protection against criminal liability under section 120(B) of Indian Penal Code to officers and members of the trade union registered under this act.
• Security against cases of civil damages arising out of trade disputes.

• Increase in frequency of Industrial Disputes
• Strikes and lockouts were very frequent.
• Crores of man days were lost.
• May 1, 1927 was celebrated at Bombay as the Labour Day – the symbol of opening of a new era of the Indian Labour movement as a conscious part of the International Labour Movement.

AITUC Split

• AITUC suffered three major splits dividing and weakening the trade union movement
• Happened at the Nagpur Session in 1929.
• 3 major parts
  • Truncated AITUC
  • Indian Trade Union Federation
  • Red Trade Union Congress

1930-39

• Great depression and its effects on trade union activities
• Reunification of trade union movement.

Great depression and its effects on Trade Union activities

• Economic activities came to a standstill, falling prices, wage cuts, mass unemployment, starvation
• Decline in membership of trade union.
• Truncated AITUC, Indian Trade Union Federation and Red Trade Union Congress were not in a position to offer any resistance to the onslaughts of employers and deteriorating labour standards.
• Employers resorted to wage cuts, retrenchment and schemes of rationalization.

Reunification of Trade Union Movement

• There was a split in the Red Trade Union Congress in 1931.
• Indian trade unions were divided into 4 groups –
  • Original AITUC – control of radicals
  • Indian Trade union Federation – control of moderates
  • Red Trade Union Congress – control of communists
  • Group of independent trade union not attached to any central organization.
  • Indian labour Movement was unified – 1940 – series of compromises – RR Gokhale, VV Giri, NM Joshi, Diwan Chamanlal.
  • Happened at Nagpur in 1940.

1940-49

• Two major events:
  • 2^nd World War
  • Indian independence

2^nd World War

• Effects:
  • Attitude towards the war and the split in the trade union movement.
  • force to trade union growth and increase in the number of industrial disputes.
  • beginning of the practice of paying DA and bonus.
  • Creation of tripartite bodies in the field of labour and industrial relations.

• Attitude towards the war and the split in the TU movement
• AITUC became a divided house.
• Nationalists + communists = attitude of neutrality towards the war.
• Radical democrats went in for all-out support to the war efforts.
• The radicals formed a IFL – Indian Federation of Labour in November 1941. Jamna Das Mehta was the president.
• At the end of the war, there were 2 central federations,
  • AITUC
  • Indian Federation of Labour.

Trade Union growth and rise in the number of industrial disputes

• Trade Union movement gained impetus during the war.
• Prices and profits soared up because of shortage in consumer goods.

Dearness Allowance and Bonus

• To neutralize the effects of rising prices on workers’ real earnings due to the war. It was to be abolished after the war was over. But this didn’t happen.
• There were controversies and the courts decided that workers have a right to claim bonus out of the profit of the industry.
• Dispute resolved with the payment of bonus act, 1965.

Post Independence Period 1947-66

• The expansion of employment-intensive public enterprises resulted in the rapid growth of trade unionism within them.
• The central Government at that time exerted a major role in determining wages and working conditions. Trade union structures were highly centralized.
• A series of labour movement splits occurred during this industrializing period.
• Division in the labour movement continued with the creation of :
  • Hind Mazdoor Sabha (HMS) in 1948
  • The United Trade Union Congress (UTUC), 1949
  • The Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) in 1955
  • The United Trade Union Congress-Lenin Sarani (UTUC-LS) in 1951
  • Various laws were introduced to regulate working and employment conditions and to systemize industrial relations.
    • Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act (1946)
    • The Industrial Disputes Act (1947)
    • The Indian Factories Act (1948)
    • The Minimum Wages Act (1948)
    • The Plantation Labour Act (1951)
    • The Employees’ Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act (1952)
    • The Companies Act (1956)
    • The Maternity Benefit Act (1961)

1967-79

• Industrial stagnation set in from 1967 to 1979 – made more acute by oil price shocks in 1973 and 1978 – triggered inflation.
• Railwaymen’s strike in May 1974 provoked Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to issue a State of Emergency in 1975.
• The national emergency lasted from 1975 to 1977; during that time, the right to strike was suspended and union activities were restricted.
• Labour militancy became a common phenomenon, particularly with the extremely high labour upsurge.
• During the 1967-79 period, there were 2,437 strikes on an average per year, involving average of 1.87 million workers annually and 12.39 million lost work days.
• The situation was further worsened by a severe drought in 1979.
• The number of registered trade unions more than doubled, from 15,314 in 1967 to 34,430 in 1979.

1980-91

• The economy suffered from severe internal and external aggravations, resulting in an industrial recession from 1980 through 1981.
• From the mid 1980s, the Government imposed an economic liberalization policy that offered
  • export incentives and
  • encouraged domestic market competitiveness
  • The labour market was made more flexible, making it easier for companies to subcontract and outsource their production of consumer nondurables to the unorganized sector.
  • Such a flexible labour market brought an adverse impact on trade union activities and reshaped the industrial relations system.
  • As a consequence of economic downturn and political suppression in 1981, the registered unions sharply declined from 34,430 in 1979 to 15,042.
  • In 1991, the number of registered trade unions drastically increased.

1992-present

• After borrowing a massive bailout loan of US$1.8 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the economy became more open, liberalized and privatized than ever before.
• During the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) regime, Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) and its affiliates grew – membership of 6.2 million  – the largest CTUO (central trade union organization).
• The 2004 election results required the formation of a coalition government – the United Progressive Alliance (UPA).
• The INTUC (Indian National Trade Union Congress), the second-largest CTUO (central trade union organization), wielded more political influence because it was aligned with the INC (Indian National Congress).
• The number of trade unions increased, but they became more divided at both the national and state levels.
• The number of CTUOs increased to 12 in 2008.

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