Reconstituting the Industrial Worker: Precarity in the Indian Auto Sector
Release time: 2019-09-11
Sara Duvisac
Abstract
In the past 15 years, insecure employment relations as well as militant labor unrest have marked the Indian automobile sector. Through a case study of four final assembly automobile firms, from three regions in India, this article examines the mechanisms by which state interventions have shaped the rise of precarious work in the sector and its consequential implications for labor organizing. Drawing on firm level economic data and interviews with key stakeholders, this article argues that state interventions play a key role in disciplining and reconstituting the Indian automobile worker. The regional comparison of state interventions in the automobile sector helps to identify spaces for strengthening labor organizing around precarious work and the rights of the citizen-worker.
Keywords
Automobile industry, India, labor studies, precarity
From: Critical Sociology 2019 45 (4-5)
Editor: Wang Yi