Sometime ago, a learned industrial relations professor disagreed with me on whether software engineers can form unions or not. He held the position that that their work would come under the term “technical”, but I was convinced that no state government would permit such a trade union to be registered unless it is the erstwhile West Bengal government or under political duress as in Karnataka. Indeed workers are even unable to register unions — consider the example of Maruti workers at Manesar and the 1,000-plus workers at GM in Halol, Gujarat last year.
This brings us to Lenin’s famous quote of globalisation being the last frontier of imperialism. Even he would not have imagined the complete dominance of capital. As Osamu Suzuki visits state capitals, there is nobody to ask him about his approach towards the constitutional rights of workers in his plant. He has dismissed the episode as indiscipline and the labour commissioner, too, has asked workers to sign the code of good conduct. Even if the matter goes to the courts, it will serve to fill the dreary pages of law books and no immediate purpose will be served.
Hari Parmeshwar, on email
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