Labour Regulation in the Long Twentieth Century

Permanent URI for this communityhttps://dans.nls.ac.in/handle/123456789/2845

About

(copied over from original)

Labour Regulation in the Long Twentieth Century is conceived as a digital repository on labour regulations in India and one of the result of Thematic Module Labour as a Political Category under Merian-Tagore International Centre of Advanced Studies: 'Metamorphoses of the Political (ICAS:MP), an interdisciplinary forum for intellectual exchange funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The repository is aslo an element of a larger project of multilateral cooperation that aims at creating "Extended Archives of Indian Labour".

In the period after the First World War, labour became a significant object of state regulation in India. This is not to say that there was no regulation in the period prior to this; but its character was markedly different. Regulations in the nineteenth century had a distinctly penal flavor. The Workmen's Breach of Contract Act of 1859 and a series of legislations directed towards indentured plantation labour in India and abroad were prominent examples of the penal character of labour regulations. Trade unions when they existed were subject to criminal trespass laws.

The rapid expansion of industries and industrial labour in the years leading up to and during the First World War, the upsurge in labour protests in India, the Russian Revolution, the establishment of the ILO and the formation of the first All India Trade Union Congress, provide the immediate context for the shift in colonial state policy. The emergence of labour as a political category was now recognized in the Government of India Act of 1919 when a special representation for labour through nomination was introduced. At the same time, the question of the social reproduction of labour became a matter of concern for colonial state policy. These shifts were reflected in the slew of labour legislation in the 1920s and 1930s, for example, the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1923, the ending of penal labour regimes in 1925, the Trade Union Act of 1926 and the Trade Disputes Act of 1929, as an immediate response to the general strikes of 1928 in Bombay. No doubt these welfare oriented legislations covered only a small segment of industrial workers, nevertheless they marked a trend which culminated in the setting up of a formal sector labour regime in post-independent India, with the promulgation of the Industrial Disputes Act of 1947, the Factories Act of 1948, the Minimum Wages Act of 1948, the Employees State Insurance Act of 1948, the Plantation Labour Act of 1951 and the Provident Fund Act of 1952. The expansion of the Public Sector in the Nehruvian era accelerated the process of industrialization leading to an increase of the labour force in modern industries and establishments.

A labour regime based on extensive juridification of the employer-employee relations emerged within the frame of an interventionist state in post-independent India. There was a consequent expansion of labour related legal disputes, industrial tribunal awards on wages, bonus, dearness allowance, and welfare related compensations. Even as the bulk of labour including those in agriculture and urban informal sector were excluded from this labour regime, it still played a crucial role in shaping expectations and framing the vision of a modern industrial India. In the last decades of the twentieth and the early decades of the twenty first centuries, the regulatory modalities were substantially transformed under the twin pressure of an increasing neo-liberal turn in economic policy making and financial and trade globalisation.

The present repository of documents aims to track these changes over the long twentieth century. It presently comprises of the following five collections that together provide a valuable resource for mapping histories of labour.

  • The Labour Gazette brought out by the Bombay Labour Office from 1921 specialized in providing information on conditions of labour, industrial disputes and legislative changes in India and included international news about labour.
  • The Labour Law Journal (1949- 2005) containing major judicial and labour court judgments, orders and pronouncements on labour disputes.
  • ILO India, monthly reports, 1929-1970, a unique collection of reports sent out monthly from the ILO India Office tracking legislative and political changes in India.
  • The All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) Pamphlets Collection 1928-1990. This collection of printed pamphlets traces the origin and evolution of the organisation of the AITUC as the first All India Federation of Trade Unions. It also contains pamphlets containing the position of the AITUC on economic policy, major legislations concerned with labour and accounts of important events connected with the history of industrial relations in India.
  • Commissions of Labour 1931-2002. This collection contains the reports, evidence and memorandums submitted to various official commissions in pre and post-independence India to enquire into conditions of labour, beginning with the Royal Commission on Labour in India (1929-31) and includes reports of the National Commissions on Labour 1969, 1991 and 2002.


Credits

(copied over from original)

Labour Regulation in the Long Twentieth Century is conceived as a digital repository on labour regulations in India. This repository result of an ongoing activity of TM 2 Labour as a Political Category under Merian-Tagore International Centre of Advanced Studies: 'Metamorphoses of the Political (ICAS:MP), an interdisciplinary forum for intellectual exchange funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Module Coordinator: Prof. Rana Behal (AILH/University of Delhi), Prof. Dr. Ravi Ahuja (CeMIS Gottingen), Dr. Aditya Sarkar (University of Warwick)
Project Coordinators: Dr. Anna Sailer, Dr.Naveen Chander
Senior Researcher: Dr.Naveen Chander
Repository Adviser: Prof. Chitra Joshi, Prof. Prabhu Mohapotra, Prof. Ravi Ahuja
Jr. Research Assistants: Harshita Sharma, Harsh Kapoor, Mohd. Mazhar, Matt
Infrastructure Support: Archives of Indian Labour, Association of Indian labour Historians (AILH), Center for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS), Max Weber Stiftung (MWS)
Design and Customisation: Vijay Pratap Singh, Dr.Naveen Chander
Technical Assistants and Dspace installation: Utsav Rai, Deepak Chaudhary (Jivesna Tech )
Software Credits: This site is an Open-source web publishing archival platform for sharing digital collections, using Dublin Core Vocabulary

Terms of Usage

(copied over from original)

Labour Regulation in the Long Twentieth Century is an online research archive of primary and secondary materials related to labour regulation and working class history in India. These materials include, Trade Union Records, Government reports and periodicals, Labour Law Reports as well as newspaper reports, oral interviews, video documents etc. and are intended to facilitate research, criticism, educational use by researchers, scholars, students and other interested persons. The site aims to promote inter disciplinary scholarship and is intended to be used primarily for non commercial purposes. The site specifically adheres to exceptions and rights granted for libraries, archives and for purposes of research and educational use under Sec. 52 of the Copyright Act.

The website attempts to bring together in a consolidated manner all materials pertaining to regulation and labour history including but not limited to valuable archival materials available in the public domain. These materials will be available for all users. Some material will only be available to bona fide researchers and scholars who present their credentials to the administrators. This shall solely be at the discretion of the administrators



Contact

(copied over from original)

Anna Sailer
anna.sailer-1@sowi.uni-goettingen.de
Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS)
University of Gottingen

Naveen Chander
cu.naveen@gmail.com
Sr. Researcher, Labour Module
Merian-Tagore International Centre of Advanced Studies: 'Metamorphoses of the Political (ICAS:MP)

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Author: search.filters.author.All-India Trade Union CongressEnd date: 1949

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Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
  • Item
    All-India Trade Union Congress: Report, Twentieth Session: Nagpur 1943
    (All-India Trade Union Congress, 1943) All-India Trade Union Congress
    Includes: the proceedings; REPORT OF THE GENERAL SECRETARY: AITUC strength; Detention of the president and members of the Working Committee and General Council; Observation of special days by AITUC; Organisational tours by AITUC office bearers; Provincial committee of the AITUC; Consultations by government; Tripartite labour conference; Representations to provincial governments; Attitude to war of AITUC; Workers and political situation; Important labour struggles; Working of war time ordinances; Problems of labour legislation. Statement of accounts. RESOLUTIONS: Greetings for May Day, to the Red Army, to the Chinese people; Indians in South Africa; Kayyur comrades; Repression; Defence of India Act; Dearness allowance; Rationing; Food crisis; Railway workers; Dismissals on railways for desertion; Textile worker demands; Seamen; Jute workers; Khewra salt miners; Tea plantation workers; Paper industry; Digboi petroleum workers; Bidi (beedi) workers; Primary school teachers; Baroda state trade union legislation; Repression in Cochi and Travancore; ARP measures in Bengal; Health insurance; Tripartite conference; Draft resolutions that were not passed. Amendments to the constitution. Resolutions passed at working committee meeting. Resolutions passed at general council meeting. Resolutions of new general council. Affiliated unions. Members of general council. List of attendees to 20th session. AITUC constitution.
  • Item
    All-India Trade Union Congress: Report Eighteenth Session, 1940
    (All-India Trade Union Congress, 1940) All-India Trade Union Congress
    Includes the report of the general secretary from April 1938 to September 1940: AITUC strength
  • Item
    All-India Trade Union Congress Report of the Eight Session 1927
    (All-India Trade Union Congress, 1927) All-India Trade Union Congress
    Includes: proceedings. Speeches by the AITUC president, and appendices relating to labour on the railway; Seamen; Coal; Infant mortality; Housing; Truck act; Prompt payment of wages; Indian labour abroad. GENERAL SECRETARY’S REPORT: AITUC strength; Provincial committees and provincial secretaries; Delhi session of congress; Executive council meetings; Election; Circulars; Affiliated unions; Strikes and lockouts; Petroleum workers strike; Textile workers strike at Coimbatore; Mill worker strikes; Labour legislation; Indian Mines Act; Government resolution on International Labour Conference; Indian Penal Code; All-India Trade Union Bulletin; Indian Labour Journals; May Day celebrations; International labour conference; Indian fraternal delegates; Delegations from abroad; T. Mardy Jones, MP, tour of India on labour conditions; General labour conditions in India; AITUC financial position; Money from USSR. Speeches by A. A. Parcell, MP; J. Hallsworth; T Mardy Jones, MP; British delegations speeches. RESOLUTIONS: Royal commission on reforms; Miss Mayo’s “Mother India”; Political prisoners; Passport to Messrs. Saklatwala, Thengdi and Ghate; Protest against imperialism; Soviet anniversary; China; Anglo-Russian unity; Prosecution of P. Spratt; General labour demands; Unemployment; Workmen’s Compensation Act; Policy of protection and workers’ interests; Industrial Housing conditions; Legislation against imposition of fines; Amendment of Indian Factories Act; Seamen’s grievances; Textile workers grievances; Railwaymen’s grievances; Press workers’ grievances; Miners’ grievances; Cordite factory workers; Telegragh peons; Government Employees’ Unions; Council of actions; Delegation to International Labour Conference. Statement showing the affiliation fees received and due from affiliated unions. Statement of accounts. List of affiliated unions with their addresses. Constitution of the AITUC.
  • Item
    All-India Trade Union Congress: Report Fifteenth Session, 1935
    (All-India Trade Union Congress, 1935) All-India Trade Union Congress
    Includes: proceedings, with speeches by chairman of the reception committee S. H. Jhabvala; by AITUC president Maniben Kara; by Jawaharial Nehru. GENERAL SECRETARY KHED-GIKAR’S REPORT: United front; Calcutta session; Bombay Girni Kamgar Union election; Bombay Dock Workers’ union; Amalgamation of rival unions; Efforts for unity with NTUF; Affiliation of unions from the Red TUC; United front with the All India Congress Socialist Party; Relations with the Indian National Congress; Activities; Informal meetings; Observance of days; Labour week; Labour legislation; Strikes; Repression; Non-recognition of trade unions; Provincial committees; New unions; Affiliation of new unions; Funds. RESOLUTIONS: Trade union unity; repression; War; Greetings to Abysinnia; Relations with Indian National Congress; Collective representation; Scheme of representation—DCC executive, PCC and annual session, AICC, TU constituencies, method of election; Development of political consciousness; Labour constituencies; Payment of wage bills; Factories’ Act; Press workers; Jamshedpur Metal Workers’ union; Peasantry; Majoor Mahajan Ahmedabad; Railway retrenchment; Unemployment; Immediate tasks; New office bearers. List of affiliated unions for the year 1936-37; AITUC constitution.
  • Item
    All-India Trade Union Congress: Report Twenty-First Session: Madras, 1945
    (All-India Trade Union Congress, 1945) All-India Trade Union Congress
    Includes: the proceedings: amendments to the constitution. Elections. General council meeting. Table of affiliated membership. GENERAL SECRETARY’S REPORT: Strength of the AITUC; Meetings; Provincial and regional conferences; Visits to affiliated unions; Activities of provincial and regional committees; Regional councils in Gujarat, Khandesh, Andhra, Kerala; Programme for extension of AITUC activities; AITUC circulars and publications; AITUC finances; Tripartite deliberations—Standing labour committees, plenary tripartite conferences, action on tripartite deliberations; Representations made to government; AITUC representation on government committees; Indian workers representative at ILO conference; World trade union conference; Economic and political situation; Workers and the political situation; Labour in Indian states; AITUC presidents tour to Great Britain; Fraternal greetings; ILO conference for Southeast Asua; 21st session of the AITUC. RESOLUTIONS: The faith of the AITUC; Martyrs for Indian Freedom; Workers and the political situation; Suppression of civil liberties; Ban on the Indian National Congress; Release of the Congress Working Committee members; Chimur and Ashti prisoners; Greetings to the Red Army; Greece; British labour delegation; Invitation to Soviet Trade Union representatives; On planning; Dearness allowance and public wages; Rationing for industrial workers; Involuntary unemployment; Operation of National Service ordinance; Delay in adjudication and conciliation; Weekly Holidays’ Act; Recommendations of Labour Enquiry Committee; Indian states; Malaria epidemic in workers’ areas in Bengal; Labour policy of the Madras government; Railway wokers’ demands; Private motor drivers; Textile workers; Handloom weavers; Jute workers; Labour in coal mines; Kolar gold fields workers; Khewra salt mine workers; Mica workers; Iron and steel industry workers at Jamshedpur; Paper and press workers; Tea plantation workers; Workers employed by contract system. Affiliated unions; General council members; Addresses of provincial committees and regional councils of AITUC; List of attendees to 21st session; AITUC constitution.
  • Item
    All-India Trade Union Congress: Report Twenty-Second Session: Calcutta, 1947
    (All-India Trade Union Congress, 1947) All-India Trade Union Congress
    Includes proceedings. GENERAL SECRETARY’S REPORT: The Working Committee; General Council; Standing Credentials committee; Office bearers’ tours; Provincial and regional conferences and councils; Industrial conferences; head office; Tripartite deliberations; Five year labour plan; AITUC representatives on government committees; ILO; World Federation of trade unions; Political situation; Working class situation; Labour legislation; AITUC’s sympathies with freedom struggles; President’s statements; Finances. Appendices: Working committee statement on unemployment, cuts in dearness allowance and wages; Industrial disputes legislation; Communal riots; Trade union liberties; Police firing; Housing for industrial workers; Accounts. REOLUTIONS: AITUC’s main objective; Nationalisation of industries; Industrial workers’ wages and housing; Cloth shortage; Unemployment; Basic Demands Day; Communal riots; Trade union liberties and riots; Repression in British India; Repressive legislation; Kisan struggles; Government’s five-year labour programme; Industrial disputes legislation bill; Workmen’s State Insurance bill; Workmen’s Compensation Act; Holidays with pay; Employment exchanges; Factories Act; Labour policy; Bombay Industrial Relations bill; Industrial Relations Bill of C.P. and Berar; Police firing in Calcutta; Strikes in Calcutta; UP (Uttar Pradesh) labour enquiry committee; Working class struggles in states; Railwaymen; Cotton textile workers; Jute textile workers; Coal miners; Plantation workers; Indian seamen; Motor transport workers; Printing press workers; Glass industry workers; Petroleum workers; Municipal workers; Post and telegraph workers; Clerical and administrative workers; Primary school teachers; Untouchable workers. Affiliated unions; General council members; Provincial committees; Delegates; Constitution.
  • Item
    All-India Trade Union Congress Report of the Twenty-third Session, 1949
    (All-India Trade Union Congress, 1949) All-India Trade Union Congress
    Includes: Report on Work Done (From Feb. 1947 to March 1949): Deepening economic crisis; Jute; Cotton textiles; Railways; Mines; Mineral and metal industry; Tea plantations; Municipal services; Other employees; Agricultural labour; Dearness allowance; Unemployment; Increased workload; Capitalist profits; Textiles; Clarification of strikes; The struggle; AITUC and WFTU. Working committee (in relation to Pakistan); General council; Standing credentials committee; Organizational work at head office. WORK ON OFFICIAL BODIES: 8th Indian Labour Conference; 9th Labour Conference and 10th Standing Labour Committee; 11th Standing Labour Committee; Committees under Industrial Truce Resolution. Indian Industrial tripartite committees; Other committees appointed by the Indian government; ILO. Appendices: Resolution on desertions; Resolution on Industrial Truce; N. M. Joshi’s statement; Statement of accounts. RESOLUTIONS on: Basic demands; Workers resist; Unemployment; Trade union rights; Railways; Railway enquiry report; INTUC; Comrade Ganapathy; Telangala struggle; Detenus’ demands; Repression and release of trade union leaders; Commonwealth pact; Atlantic pact; Peasants’ struggle against procurement plan; Post and telegraph employees; Bombay municipal workers’ strike; World Peace Congress; Jute workers; Kali Bannerji’s arrest; Firings in Calcutta; Textile workers’ conference; Martyrs; Death sentences on Hyderabad peasant leaders; Detenus’ aid relief; Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation; Militant movement of the middle class; Calcutta tram workers; Municipal workers of West Bengal. STRIKE DIARY: Textiles; Jute; Other industries; Ordnance factories; Mines; Railways; Dock and port trust workers; Bus and tram labour; Municipal employees; Miscellaneous; Bidi (Beedi), cigar and hotel etc. workers. Constitutional amendments.
  • Item
    Report Nineteenth Session of The All-India Trade Union Congress. Cawnpore 1942
    (All-India Trade Union Congress, 1942) All-India Trade Union Congress
    Includes: the proceedings. REPORT OF THE GENERAL SECRETARY: Affiliated union numbers; ASITUC office; Resolutions of the 18th session; AITUC provincial committees; Indian government invitation to a conference with labour representatives; Internal labour conference; General condition of the trade union movement; Dearness allowance; AITUC attitude to war; National Services ordinance; Hours under the Factories’ Act; Investigations into labour conditions. Statement of accounts. Amendments to the constitution. RESOLUTIONS: Recognition of trade unions and factory committees; AITUC working committee memoranda; Government inquiry committees on conditions of labour; Detainees; Restrictions on Suresh Chandra Banerjee; Budge-Budge jute workers strike; Appeal to workers during panic of war; Protective measure and compensation for war risk; National services ordinances; Ordinances of government affecting the freedom of labour; Increase in basic wages and grant of dearness allowance; War-risk bonus to Indian seamen; Resolutions regarding attitude to War – proposed but not passed. Working committee decisions. General council decisions; Resolutions of the New General Council; Affiliated unions; Members of general council; List of attendees to 19th session; AITUC constitution.