An assessment of the Maruti Suzuki Employees Union’s struggles against the Suzuki management in Manesar (Gurgaon) reveals that like central trade unions, plant unions also tend to reproduce a form of bureaucratic functioning. This results in a split between leaders and the rank and file – a tendency which often leads to the betrayal of the interests of the struggling workers.

How large is the workforce that resides in rural areas and commutes to urban areas and vice versa? This note examines this unnoticed issue and compares different aspects of the share of commuting workers in rural and urban workforce based on two National Sample Survey rounds in 2004-05 and 2009-10.

The post-199os economic boom in China is largely associated with an increasing rural-urban divide and a decline in formal wage employment in the urban sector. The case of workers in the Shenzhen special economic zone in south China is representative of this trend. When agriculture was deprioritised there was an exodus to the cities. The “peasant workers” in Shenzhen are forced to pay taxes and fees in their native villages but are not officially accepted as urban workers and cannot enjoy the urban-based facilities that the latter do.

If one were to use correct concepts and measurements, it will be seen that labour in Gujarat has actually significantly benefited from high economic growth and productivity gains. Annual Survey of Industries data show that the state has outperformed many others in the level of employment and wage compensation. A critical comment on “Labour and Employment under Globalisation: The Case of Gujarat” (EPW, 28 May 2011).