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Company and contract labour in a central Indian steel plant

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  • Parry, Jonathan

Abstract

This paper offers a descriptive analysis of the way in which the working world of contract labourers in a public-sector Indian steel plant is differentiated from that of its regular workforce. The two kinds of workers regard themselves as distinct kinds of people and are now best seen as distinct social classes. While the sociology of India has broadly accepted the manual/non-manual labour distinction as the crucial marker of the boundary between the working and the middle classes, what is suggested here is that that between naukri (secure employment) and kam (insecure wage labour) - which cuts right across that distinction and is broadly congruent with that between formal- and informal-sector employment - is a more important marker of difference. At work, the two kinds of workforce are sharply distinguished by the material rewards of their jobs and by their security and conditions of employment; outside it by differences in life-style and attitudes - a gap that has grown with the liberalization of the Indian economy. The composition of the work groups to which the two kinds of labour characteristically belong are sharply differentiated by gender, by regional ethnicity and by urban or rural residence. Interactions within the work group are again very different, while interactions between regular and contract workers are largely confined to the work itself. Outside it they are kept to a minimum, testifying to a shared sense that socially the two kinds of workforce are profoundly different.

Suggested Citation

  • Parry, Jonathan, 2013. "Company and contract labour in a central Indian steel plant," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 52603, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:52603
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    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/52603/
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Breman,Jan, 1996. "Footloose Labour," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521560832, October.
    2. Breman,Jan, 1996. "Footloose Labour," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521568241, October.
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    Cited by:

    1. Supurna Banerjee, 2018. "From ‘Plantation Workers’ to NaukrÄ nÄ«," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 13(2), pages 164-185, August.
    2. Devi Vijay, 2019. "Introduction to the special issue: changing nature of work and organizations in India," DECISION: Official Journal of the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, Springer;Indian Institute of Management Calcutta, vol. 46(2), pages 93-97, June.
    3. Shahid Karim & Kong Xiang & Abdul Hameed, 2021. "Investigating social development inequality among steel industry workers in Pakistan: A contribution to social development policies," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(6), pages 1-16, June.
    4. Itay Noy, 2023. "Unpicking Precarity: Informal Work in Eastern India's Coal Mining Tracts," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 54(1), pages 168-191, January.
    5. Subir Bikas Mitra & Piyali Ghosh, 2022. "Engaging Contract Labour: Learnings from Landmark Judgements," Management and Labour Studies, XLRI Jamshedpur, School of Business Management & Human Resources, vol. 47(1), pages 97-118, February.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • R14 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Land Use Patterns
    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General

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