LABOUR RELATIONS IN CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY: A STUDY OF NATIONAL CAPITAL REGION DELHI

Abstract

This dissertation examines the conditions and dynamics of labour relations in construction industry in India. The study follows the labour regime approach (Bernstein, 2007) while examining the labour practices, conditions of labour, employment relations and labour standards in contemporary world of construction work. The study focuses on the informal workers who happens to be migrants and are mobilized through intermediaries to work at various organised construction worksites of India’s five top construction companies (MNCs) in Delhi National Capital Region (Delhi NCR). The study is directly driven from the current debates about the impact of economic liberalization and neoliberal polices on the governance of labour market and employment relations in India. During the last two and half decades of post structural adjustment program, Indian economy in general and labour market in particular has witnessed a significant structural transformation. There is growing evidence that neoliberalism has not only served to increase the numbers of informal ‘wage’ workers but also has not secured the decent work conditions among the existing informal workforce. Amid growing informality, most of the comprehensive labour market surveys have highlighted the expansion of informal workforce, especially self-employment and casual workforce while most of the employment shift has been seen towards the construction sector. Construction workers now constitute the largest army of the non-farm informal workforce and the construction industry has emerged as the largest employer after agriculture in the country (GOI, 2011). Traditionally, construction industry in India is most fragmented and unorganized in nature. The industry is labour intensive and employs contract wage workers. As Indian economy is general and informal labour market in particular has been social regulated, social institutions play an important role in mobilisation of the labour and governance of the informal labour markets. The construction activities are everlasting and continuously requires a huge informal or casual workforce. The intermediaries, and other social institutions such as caste, class, religion and social networks etc. play a significant role in mobilization of the workers from the rural or less-developed regions of the country. Most of the construction workers (including self-employed or casual wage workers) of often lack social security and a large number of them belong to the poor as well as unprivileged groups of the society such as SCs/STs and ii other backward classes etc. Thus in most cases, workers enter informal sector in general and construction sector in particular not by choice but out of a livelihood necessity. This could be due to poverty or the labour market conditions such as lack of adequate skill, social protection, inadequate alternate employment, persistent of underemployment or high unemployment, and other vulnerabilities in getting a formal work or job by them. Moreover, mobilization or recruitment of the workforce through intermediaries’ that is common in the construction industry often blurred the employment relationship and diminish the role of social dialogue as well as collective bargaining institutions. Such labour process and practices also limits the opportunities of the traditional trade unions to organize the workers in construction industry. These intermediaries such as agency of workers, mediators/agent, social network and other labour contractor often trapped the workers in the ‘triangular’ or some time ‘quadrangular’ employment relations. As most of the intermediaries are also to some extent informal workers and often employed with precarious relationship such a leader of the group, gang-leader or supervisor etc. These practices often serve to increase the complexity of labour relationship where most of workers often face deprivation of both human and workmanship rights. Most of India’s recent comprehensive labour market surveys and reports have highlighted that 93 percent of the country’s mass workforce (472 million) is employed beyond the formal sector without any kind of adequate social security (GOI, 2010:2012; NCEUS, 2008). Despite of a consistent high growth rate and rise of India as a soft power, during the last two decades, such a magnitude of insecure and informal workforce is more contradictory to both neo classical and development theories which argue that with the pace of development both the informal workers and the informal sector would diminish and make labour more free to exercise their participation in the labour market. Though to some extent, the registered contractors provide an important source of work and income for unregistered contractors, the latter become an important supplier of labour to former. However, most often these own account informal workers or unregistered petty labour contractors generally excluded from the policy interventions. Further, most of the workers are seasonal, circular and frictional migrants who often left out from the large scale sample surveys and exposed to exclusion in terms of both workmanship as well as social benefits. iii This brings the labour issues at the centre of labour market debates and the employment-work relations. In a developing cum surplus labour country like India, the continuous rise in informal workforce and concentration of poor, low human capital and historically marginalized as verbal contract wage workers, especially, migrants, women and other vulnerable workers from the unprivileged section of the society often posed serious challenge to balance the capital-labour relations. These labour market conditions and vulnerable dynamics of labour often put workers in deficit of decent work conditions and exploitative employment conditions. Typically, most of the construction workers across worksites are employed as contract-workers beyond the standard employment relations, social security and effective legal protection whether hired as self-employed or temporary/casual labourers. Further, recruitment through intermediaries clearly limits the opportunity for traditional collective bargaining actions, social dialogue and social justice. Thus the labour relations, where they exist, are based mostly on casual employment, kinship or personal or social relations rather than contractual written arrangement. Thus the central questions posed by this thesis are; how the workers are mobilized and what kind of role of intermediaries play in mobilization of labour-force? What kind of employment contract workers involved and how such contracts ensure the adequate job, work, income and social security to the workers in relations to standard employment relations or decent work? Further, to what extent existing industrial, labour and welfare regulations provide the legal protection to workers? The universe of the study is the India’s National Capital Region, known as ‘Delhi NCR’. The region happens to be one of the largest urban agglomerations and with accelerated construction activities attracts both the large scale domestic as well as international construction organization and thus become a magnet for migrant workers. The contemporary dynamics of labour relations would be assessed by examining the process of labour mobilisation, conditions of labour, employment or work relations and compliance of the labour regulations. The study has used mixed methodology to collect both qualitative and quantitative fieldwork data via interviews, focus group discussions and case studies of about 500 migrant wage workers (including self-employed or casual) employed at six construction sites across Delhi NCR Region. These worksites belongs to India’s top public and private sector construction organizations and have global partners at various level of activities from iv planning designing of the project to contract out as well as execution of the work. These companies have not only pan-India construction activities but also have construction projects across continents. In this context, the main focus of the study remains on the workers’ experiences as how the contemporary capitalism has restructure the mode of production to incorporate the traditional labour practices, conditions of work and employment relations etc. For a robust understanding of the contemporary labour relations, the study addresses following questions; how employers (contractors/ subcontractor in this study) strategically use the intermediaries, agency of workers and their social networks to mobilize workforce that has specific socio-economic characteristics? How employer or labour recruiters/contractor take advantage of workers’ constraints, expectation and aspiration to exploit them with their own set of rules rather than standard regulations? To what extent the compliance of the existing labour and social regulations have improved the conditions of work in relations to decent work? And finally, to what extent diversity of workers and emerging employment configurations help them to resist or bargain to contain the deficit of workmanship rights and welfare benefit