On 1 March 1924, the Indian Legislative Assembly passed a resolution to introduce a law for registering trade unions in India. The British Indian government prepared and published a draft Bill in September 1924. The Bill proposed that only those groups that complied with certain stated conditions could register as trade unions; and when registered, the Union and its members would receive protection in certain cases from civil and criminal liability. On 25 March 1926, the Indian Trade Unions Bill, 1925, received assent. On 1 June 1927, the Indian Trade Unions Act 1926 (16 of 1926) came into force and late, in 1964, by way of an amendment (38 of 1964) to Section 3 of the Indian Trade Unions Act the word ‘Indian’ was omitted from the Act and making it The Trade Unions Act, 1926.

The Act was amended many times, the recent amendment being the Trade Unions (Amendment) Act, 2001. According to the new amendment, no trade union shall be registered unless at least 10 per cent or 100, whichever is less, subject to a minimum of 7 workmen engaged or employed in the establishment or industry with which it is connected, are members on the date of applying for registration.

In the 15^th Indian Labour Conference (1957), a decision to undertake regular membership verification of the unions was taken with the view of giving representation to the trade unions on various international and national conferences committees, councils, wage boards, etc. It is this verification that determines the relative strength of Central Trade Unions. The strength of a Central Trade Union Organisation (CTUO) is taken to be the combined membership of all the registered unions affiliated to the Central Trade Unions. The general verification is to happen once every four years. The Government of India has come up with the provisional results of the 2002 verification. Labour File, in this issue, looks at the various facets of the verification process.

The recent results of trade union verification have thrown up a few, very significant indicators of the labour movement in India says Sharit K. Bhowmik, in his cover story ‘Membership Verification of Trade Unions: For What Purpose?’ He considers the massive increase in the membership as a shock to the sceptics, who predicted that the trade union movement has doomed when the processes of economic restructuring, liberalisation and globalisation accelerated since the introduction of industrial policy in 1991.

The general picture of an overall increase in membership of CTUOs as well as an increase in membership by all CTUOs is in sharp contradiction with the axiom that unionisation is decreasing under neo-liberalism, analyses J. John in ‘Overall Increase and Sectoral Setbacks: Lessons from Central Trade Union Verification 2002 Data’. He further states that the general picture also belies a decrease in membership of CTUOs in Industry and Services. According to him, though employment generation has been largely in Services, on account of the structural shift in the economy, the 2002 data of CTUO membership verification do not show any significant increase in membership in the sector; besides, there is an alarming fall in membership in the manufacturing sector, the traditional stronghold of CTUOs in India.

V. Janardhan opines that the need of the hour is a resurgent trade unionism which practises working class politics and nothing else. It has to evolve strategies and measures that respond effectively and pro-actively to the changing labour process under globalisation, a labour process that is being organised on a global scale. In his article ‘Depoliticisation of Trade Unions: The Need of the Hour?’, he emphasises the need for global unions and asserts that trade unionism in India must move in that direction.

Navin Chandra, in his article, ‘Trade Unions and Politics in India’ states that trade unions by their own nature suffer from dualism. They are formed to fight for better terms for wage slavery and not against slavery itself. Thus, they remain caught in the web of bourgeois relations. It is this dual nature of trade unions that enables the bourgeoisie to co-opt its leadership. Trade unions are also legally constrained in taking up political action.

Mohan Mani in ‘Trade Unions and Working Class Struggles: Space for a New Initiative’ explains the context in which the New Trade Union Initiative (NTUI) has been formed. He explains the need for trade unions to retain their vitality and ability to play a credible opposition role and to represent the best traditions of democratic questioning and vigorous struggle.

Organising the unorganised is a pre-requisite in the struggle for social change, articulates H. Mahadevan in ‘Central Trade Unions: Representing Unorganised Workers in India’. According to him whatever legislation exists to protect the rights of workers is the result of several struggles to organise workers who were, at some time, unorganised. The unions affiliated to CTUOs first take up the cause of the workers, who are victims of the liberalisation, privatisation and globalisation policies.

Discussing the merger of ITCU and ICFTU, Rebecca Gumbrell-McCormick comments, “It is in itself extraordinary, that after nearly a century of division, two of the three major ideological currents within the world labour movement are uniting in a single international organisation.” In ‘From the Old Trade Union Internationals to the New’, she talks about the formation of the new international as significant, for bringing in a number of national centres that are either independent or had left the remnants of the WFTU.

The reason the oft-repeated sentiment in favour of unity has become a hollow rhetoric is the ambition of the political parties to own and control their trade unions and turn them into state- or national-level entities opines Surendra Mohan in his article ‘The Façade of Trade Union Unity’.  According to him, even if two trade union centres merge into one, the durability of such a merger depends on whether the leaders are suitably accommodated.

Giving his perspective on the merger of two international unions (Eurocentric and… Invisible? The International Union Merger of November 2006: Top-Down) Peter Waterman states that the word ‘merger’ seems appropriate in the analogy with the contemporary, corporate world, in which it is the boards of directors, who are involved, whilst those lower down the hierarchy are either uninformed, passively observe or may at best express some opinions or hope that ‘unity means strength’.

Rakhi Sehgal in ‘Unions and Working Class Militancy: Recent Trends in Gurgaon’ highlights the condition of the HMSI workers in Gurgaon. According to her, there should be a comprehensive and united strategy worked upon to address the two major issues ¾ use and abuse of the contract worker system and the indiscriminate use of Section 307 of the IPC to harass and silence workers.

Sobin George, in his article, “Unionisation and Collective Bargaining in India: Contextualising the Disciplining of Labour Space in the Flexibility Regime” argues that the most striking, but often unmentioned, aspect of the informalisation of the formal sector employment in the name of flexibility is the assault on the right to collective bargaining. According to him, even in organised sectors, trade union activities are either hampered or are unable to assert the space of collective bargaining.

In the article ‘Independent Unions: Walking the Road’, Anannya Bhattacharjee writes that the term ‘independent union’ usually evokes expectations of innovation that challenge the limitations of the traditional labour movement, and even of the broader social movement.  For her, asserting independence continues to raise hopes for militancy, democracy, social as well as economic transformation, and visionary movement building.

Attempting to answer the question, ‘Can Central Trade Unions Represent the Unorganised Sector Workers in India?’, Subhash Bhatnagar emphasises the need for exploring the past records of CTUOs in order to examine whether their leaders realised that the working conditions of the unorganised sector are different from that of the organised sector and so there is a need for a separate legislation. According to him, the ideal situation would be when workers themselves elect the most effective representatives, who can protect their interests and when they can change these representatives if they do not prove adequate.

Explaining ‘SEWA’s Struggle to Be Accepted as a Central Trade Union’, Manali Shah and Shalini Trivedi explain how the workers of the informal sector are not recognised as ‘workers’. According to them, when laws are enacted or policy is made, the issues, problems, and difficulties of the workers of the informal sector are not at all considered.

A large number of registered trade unions in our country remain outside the existing Central Trade Union Organisations (CTUOs). The reason for this is mainly the fact that unions in India are divided among various national centres on the basis of ideology and controlled by political parties. D. Thankappan in his article, “Legacy of National Centres of Trade Unions”, asserts that the division in the trade union movement along party lines and the domination and control by parties have caused considerable damage to trade union unity as well as to working class power.

The interview of Chief Labour Commissioner (Central), explains the governmental processes involved in the verification of trade unions.

Labour File is initiating a new column from this issue onwards – Profiles of Trade Unions. To start with, in this issue, Sindhu Menon profiles AITUC, the first central trade union organisation in India.

Labour File also pays homage to veteran trade union leader Chittabrata Majumdar who is no more with us.