For the people

A close reading of the airport strike which ended late Saturday afternoon can give us two insights that tend to get lost in right vs left and capital vs labour arguments. First, that the strike, having started with vigour, ended in three and a half days with no fundamental compromises, indicates more than just firmness on the Centre8217;s part.

The government drew strength from an increasingly crystallising public attitude against disruptions in key services. India8217;s ongoing economic metamorphosis, which is increasing citizens8217; awareness as consumers, is driving this. But, and interestingly, popular opposition to economic dislocation was there even when consumerism was considered a Western curiosity. Indira Gandhi8217;s Emergency received not inconsiderable public support initially 8212; trains would run on time, it was said, meaning organised disruption would not wreck an ordinary Indian8217;s day. Plenty of ordinary people fly these days, a fact union leaders may not have factored in their calculations. When airports shut down, when banks and even ATMs don8217;t function 8212; one Kolkata strike managed to achieve this 8212; when the rapidly growing class of service sector employees cannot reach their workplaces, it is no longer a tiny elite that are denied their quotidian comforts. In today8217;s India, the victims are a large number of ordinary people. Given this, organised labour and its political spokespersons may want to rework the cost-benefit calculus of major strike action.

The second insight from the short-lived airport strike follows from the first. The fact that militancy on the part of the labour aristocracy is a bad strategy highlights the need for corrective action for workers who receive little protection and have few rights. The unorganised sector, the informal economy, the rough end of the service sector, all these are characterised by entrepreneurship that may be often clever and inventive but is also frequently ruthless. If exploitation has a meaning in economic practice, it is to be found in working conditions of rural migrants drafted by labour contractors, in the sweatshops of some export-oriented industries, in some forms of agribusiness. These Indians need to be made a part of the organised economy that plays by rules, and intelligent, dedicated negotiations by labour leaders on their behalf can really help. It will also help the labour movement rediscover its original purpose: to be for, not against, ordinary people.