TRADE UNION MOVEMENT IN INDIA

INTRODUCTION: Developing economies, like India, have long debated the privatization of public sector enterprises. Historically, the Indian State took upon herself the responsibility to undertake investments in basic and strategic economic activities and to control and direct the private sector through a network of regulatory institutions. The state virtually had monopoly almost over all sectors of the economy. Also, the trade union movement emerged in India, basically as a reaction to the state interventionist or state pluralism model. First phase During the period from 1950 to mid-1960s, the state had formulated a strategy based on planning and import substitution. During this era, public-sector employment and public-sector unionism rose phenomenally. Trade unions and bargaining structures were highly centralized. The two main trade union federations during this period were The nationalist: Indian National Trade Union Congress and the communist: All India Trade Union Congress. During this first phase, the labor regime was based on state-dominated pluralism. Second phase: The second phase (mid-1960s to 1979) was a period of economic stagnation and political turmoil. The rate of employment was slowing down and there were massive inter-union rivalries as a result of increase in industrial conflict. There was a proliferation of unions that developed affiliations with more radical political organizations. There was a dramatic increase in the number of disputes (strikes and lockouts. An involuted pluralism dominated Indian labor relations during this phase Third phase: During the third phase (1980-1991), decentralized bargaining and independent trade unionism emerged as a response to the segmented and uneven economic development. Fourth phase: During this phase (1991-2000) the Indian government introduced economic reforms which included privatization and liberalization measures and these came as a preparation for an initial IMF loan of $1.75 billion to $2 billion to bail India out of a serious debt crunch. Privatization, in its broader sense, stands for policies that reduce the role of the state and assign a larger role for the private sector that pursues the logic of the market in all economic decisions. Trade unions have been protesting against the privatization program because the public sector has been an important employer, especially in the organized labor market. The sector accounted for 56.84 percent of the total number of 14.3 million employees in the organized sector in 198081. From about 8.1 million in 1980-81, those employed in the public sector manufacturing increased to 9.8 million by 1990-91. In spite of efforts at downsizing the workforce by public sector during the nineties, the number of employees remained at 9.8 million at the end of 199697. During the nineties, its share in total hovered around sixty percent. Trade unionism during this phase had resulted in the decentralization and of union structures and

there was the emergence of independent unions; important among them was the emergence of the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh affiliated to the Bharatiya Janata Party (right-wing). During this phase the second National Labor Commission was set up but the workers were against the proposed changes because it diluted the need for employers to have government approval for a lockout and made it difficult for trade unions to call wildcat strikes. Significant Trade Union in India There are at present many Trade Union in India which regulates the aspirations of the working classes. The All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) is the oldest Trade Union in India and till 1945 it remained the central trade union organization in India. Some others are like All India Bank Officers Confederation- AIBOC is the premier organization of Bank Officers in India. This Trade Union in India stands apart from the others as it is organized purely on apolitical lines. All India State Government Employees Federation- AISGF is a trade union organization representing state employees and teachers of different states in India. Center of Indian Trade Unions CITU is one of the major Trade Union in India, opposing imperialistic intentions and patronizing interest of the working classes. Hind Mazdoor Sabha HMS is a progressive Trade Union in India that prefers to refrain from political control. National Confederation of Officers Association -NCOA represents the managerial and supervisory staff of the Indian government owned public Enterprises. Trade Union International TUI forms a part of the structure of World Federation of Trade Unions, representing the public employees, telecommunication employees, health services, financial sector employees & municipal employees of different countries of the world.

FUNCTIONS OF TRADE UNIOIN

Trade unions perform a number of functions in order to achieve the objectives. These functions can be broadly classified into three categories: (i) Militant functions, (ii) Fraternal functions Militant Functions One set of activities performed by trade unions leads to the betterment of the position of their members in relation to their employment. The aim of such activities is to ensure adequate wages, secure better conditions of work and employment, get better treatment from employers, etc. When the unions fail to accomplish these aims by the method of

collective bargaining and negotiations, they adopt an approach and put up a fight with the management in the form of go-slow tactics, strike, boycott, gherao, etc. Hence, these functions of the trade unions are known as militant or fighting functions. Thus, the militant functions of trade unions can be summed up as:

To achieve higher wages and better working conditions

To raise the status of workers as a part of industry

To protect labors against victimization and injustice

Fraternal Functions Another set of activities performed by trade unions aims at rendering help to its members in times of need, and improving their efficiency. Trade unions try to foster a spirit of cooperation and promote friendly industrial relations and diffuse education and culture among their members. They take up welfare measures for improving the morale of workers and generate self confidence among them. They also arrange for legal assistance to its members, if necessary. Besides, these, they undertake many welfare measures for their members, e.g., school for the education of children, library, reading-rooms, in-door and out-door games, and other recreational facilities. Some trade unions even undertake publication of some magazine or journal. These activities, which may be called fraternal functions, depend on the availability of funds, which the unions raise by subscription from members and donations from outsiders, and also on their competent and enlightened leadership. Thus, the fraternal functions of trade unions can be summed up as:

To take up welfare measures for improving the morale of workers

To generate self confidence among workers

To encourage sincerity and discipline among workers

To provide opportunities for promotion and growth

To protect women workers against discrimination

The Role of Trade Union

Trade unions are unique organisations whose role is variously interpreted and understood by different interest groups in the society. Traditionally trade unions role has been to protect jobs and real earnings, secure better conditions of work and life and fight against exploitation and arbitrariness to ensure fairness and equity in employment contexts. In the wake of a long history of union movement and accumulated benefits under collective agreements, a plethora of legislations and industrial jurisprudence, growing literacy and awareness among the employees and the spread of a variety of social institutions including consumer and public interest groups the protective role must have undergone, a qualitative change. It can be said that the protective role of trade unions remains in form, but varies in substance. There is a considerable debate on the purposes and role of trade unions. The predominant view, however, is that the concerns of trade unions extend beyond 'bread and butter' issues. Trade unions through industrial action (such as protests and strikes) and political action (influencing Government policy) establish minimum economic and legal conditions and restrain abuse of labour wherever the labour is organised. Trade unions are also seen as moral institutions, which will uplift the weak

The following is an example of what steps a union in the United States considers to be a priority in its fight to eliminate sexual harassment: There are a number of measures that local unions can take to combat sexual harassment. The goal is to make union members sensitive to the problem and to create a climate to discourage sexual harassment and, if it occurs, a climate where victims will feel comfortable turning to the union for assistance. Establish an anti-sexual harassment policy through local or council resolutions.

Educate the membership about the issue. This can include speakers, workshops and distribution of literature. Include training on handling sexual harassment grievances as part of your steward training program. If the employers provide training for supervisors, get union stewards and officers included. Determine the extent of the problem in the workplace. A survey of the membership may be useful. Negotiate anti-sexual harassment language in your collective bargaining agreement and a procedure to deal with violations. Work with employers to conduct jointly sponsored training programs. When sexual harassment does occur, act effectively to protect the members. Offer support, investigate and file appropriate grievances or complaints. Be sure that the employer has an anti-sexual harassment policy that is prominently posted or otherwise effectively communicated to all employees. If the employer has no formal policy, bring up the issue in labor/management meetings and help them develop one. Make sure that policies include a "bypass" procedure which allows initial complaints to be filed with someone other than an immediate supervisor, who may be the harasser.

The sexual harassment resolution from the 1992 AFSCME convention, a sample membership survey, sample contract language and a sample employer policy are included in the appendix.

Sec. II. The Methods Of Trade-Unions

1. The union's first aim is to get control of all the labor force in the market, and to minimize competition among workers. Every labor federation aims to extend its control to every branch of its trade. A sense of wrong is one of the strongest forces to bring the workers into the organization. The appeal to a common interest is effective in times of great grievance, as it was effective in the dangerous times of the American Revolution, though failing during the Confederation. The unwilling are first persuaded, then coerced by threats, by petty persecutions, by the most cruel of all peaceful weapons, social ostracism, and finally by personal violence. The "public opinion" and class feeling fostered among workers by their organization are analogous to the sense of patriotism and loyalty in the country at large, and at times displace it, as is seen in the opposition to the militia land to the maintenance of public order at times of strikes. The individual who declines to enter the union is denounced as a traitor and made to feel the scorn of his associates. When all these measures fail, pressure is brought to bear upon the employer to. get him to force the unwilling workers into the union. 2. Its next aim is to use collective in the place of individual bargaining, to force as much as the competitive wage, and more if possible. The term collective bargaining has been much used to describe bargaining between a group of labor leaders, the delegated representatives of the workingmen, and a group of employers or directors. It is sometimes claimed that all the tradeunion seeks is to put the workman on an equality with the employer in bargaining, enabling him to get all he would if competition were free on both sides. It is said that organized labor simply prevents the employer from following the maxim of Napoleon to "divide and conquer," from meeting his employees one by one and forcing his own terms upon them. But the most effective argument in organizing the trade-union is that it forces a higher wage, more than the market would warrant. It is sometimes assumed by labor leaders that competitive wages would be very low, almost starvation wages, and anything above that level is credited to the work of the union; while in other cases where the wages are already large, the purpose frankly avowed is to limit the labor supply in the particular trade and to force a monopoly wage by any means possible. One's opinion of trade-unions is likely to differ according as they work in one or the other of these ways. The impartial onlooker sympathizes with the efforts of the trade-unions in so far as they serve merely to put the workers on an equality with the employers in bargaining. The public wants to see "fair play," and up to a certain point the union is merely a device to get fair play. But if the union is a device to defeat competition, to force artificially high wages, it will be judged differently. The public readily sees that if the unions force more than a fair and open market affords, it is rarely at the expense of the employer; that in the long run it is at the expense

of the purchasing public itself, including the unprivileged workmen shut out from the monopoly of labor. The union seeks to secure the full competitive wage. And as much more as possible. 3. In order to accomplish their ends, the trade-unions seek to control their employers' business in various ways. They demand, first, that no non-union men shall be employed even at union wages; they demand that the employer shall help them to force his employees into the unions. In this very usual demand for the "closed shop" or "union shop" the public can see very little justice. On this point, nearly always, unions forfeit in a strike the sympathy of the public; yet the unions assert that it is almost absolutely necessary to gain this point in order to carry out their objects. If a union and a non-union man work side by side there are many ways in which the employer may make the union man suffer. If business slackens, it is likely to be the union man that is discharged; if any preference is given, it is to the non-union man. Certainly all will agree that if the unions are to get the strength to enforce all their demands it is essential that they make good this claim which leaves the employer almost helpless. Yet it certainly is not essential to the accomplishing of valuable services for the members of the union. The educational and mutualbenefit features are attained without this means; and much experience shows that, if their cause is strong, the organized men can carry with them a large proportion of the workers and the sympathy of the public in a contest for higher wages. It never has seemed to any considerable portion of the public any more desirable that organized labor through its officers should be able to dictate to employees, than that employers should crush the workmen. It is by just this assumption that union advocates beg the question of the "union shop." The issue of the closed shop vs. the open shop. Other limitations put upon industry by unions. Further, the unions direct and control the employment of labor, often limit the number of apprentices in a trade, and assume to determine who shall enjoy the privilege of learning it. They limit the output, fix the maximum amount, and forbid the use of labor-saving machinery. Whenever the unions are charged with these acts, labor leaders either deny the facts or avoid giving a direct answer, but there is no doubt that the charge is true in many ways and in many cases. The requirement that each special kind of work shall be controlled by a special trade, and disputes between rival trades, for which their jealousies are responsible, give rise to great annoyance, expense, and loss to employers and to the entire public. 4. The strike is a threat and a mode of attack to enforce the demands of the union. To most newly organized laborers the union appeals mainly as an instrument for striking, for threatening the employer or for making him suffer. When a new union is formed, it is nearly always dedicated by a strike, which is the simultaneous stopping of work by a number of workers. A strike is intended to force the employer to grant the wages and conditions demanded. Its effectiveness lies in the injury which it occasions or threatens in the stopping of machinery, the ruin of material, the loss of custom, and the failure to complete contracts undertaken. Its success being dependent

on the inability of the employer to fill the places of the strikers, their energies are bent on persuading or coercing other workers from taking employment. There are many ways of coercing workers without personal violence. Public opinion does much, and probably the severest of all coercive measures is the social ostracism of the worker. What may be called the endless-chain boycott is an excommunication, without measure or limit, of the non-union worker and of every one in any way befriending him or the employer. So far as in their power lies, the enraged strikers dissolve the very bonds of society, brother casts off brother, and mother disowns son. The unhappy conditions in the coal regions in 1902 rivaled the tragedies of civil war. A reasonable use of the boycott, refusal to maintain social relations with the person who offends one, is doubtless a part of personal liberty; but the boycott, as experience shows, has moral limits, and it should have strict legal limits. Its use beyond the moderate limit of the first degree of personal relations is anti-social to the degree of criminality, whether it be used as the weapon of organized workers or of organized wealth. When peaceable means fail, often there is a recourse to violence both against the employer and his property and against the non-union men. The evils of violence in strikes often are tardily recognized by the public, whose sympathy up to a certain point is with the striker as "the under dog." It is slow to realize that strike violence is mob-law. Whenever men of one group assume the right to coerce forcibly and to wreak their hatred against one of their fellow-workers, it is a blow at political liberty. No free society can safely go the first step in permitting one group of men to usurp control over others in this way. 'The strike and the boycott. Violence in strikes is mob law. Costliness of strikes. 5. The great losses caused by strikes are the penalty of an unsolved industrial problem. The losses to workers in wages, to employers and to investors in income and property, and to the public in interruption of business, aggregate,an enormous sum. It is, however, impossible to estimate it at all exactly, as the losses are in many cases indirect and intangible. The strikers are concerned not with the balance of total losses and total gains to society as a whole, but with the net gain that in the long run accrues to them. It is true that there are indirect gains not easily calculable, as the advance of wages made to avoid a strike while the lesson of the consequences is still fresh. Opinion among workingmen is not a unit as to the value of strikes. A few years ago it seemed safe to say that strikes were declining as compared with the period of the early eighties. It is probably true, as is often said, that as laborers become educated they put less faith in strikes. The epidemic of labor troubles, marking the years from 1899 to 1903, gave no evidence of a decrease in the use of strikes, yet many of these were due to the recent organization in various trades. The coal strike of 1902, though doubtless due to real grievances, was opposed by the officers of the union, an unusually capable set of men, but the more violent and discordant elements overruled the more pacific counsels. The public is perhaps as favorable as it has ever been to the cause of labor, but it appears to have less patience with strikes than it had fifteen years ago, and strikes usually fail if not backed by public opinion. The public has not as yet thought out consistent conclusions on the question of the rights of the union. It is just now much

impressed with the value of arbitration. As experience destroys the unsound sentiments, and divides the wise from the unwise measures, a peaceable solution of industrial differences must and will be found.