A study of worker insecurity in four industrial relations contexts: a post structural approach

Abstract

A review of literature suggests some broad approaches through which academic engagement with worker insecurity has occurred - communicant managerial, associations managerial, structural Marxist, radical humanist and post-structural. This study privileges a post-structural approach while drawing from the critical intent of structural Marxism and the emancipatory ideals of radical humanism. The post- structural approach offers theoretical resources to engage with the subjectivity of workers which challenge conventional under-standings of work practices. This is done by focusing on the enactments of practices and the legitimating intellectual apparatus that makes these enactments possible. In order to access these enactments of practices, and understand what legitimates them, the methodological focus is on the lived experiences of workers, rather than on idealized concepts, and understanding how lived realities depart from these idealized concepts. Identities and definitions are not foreclosed and the lived experiences of workers are the basis of under-standing a range of social positions that identities and definitions can take. Based on this theoretical and methodological focus, this study is anchored around the following three rese arch questions: Q.l. In the context of worker insecurity how is powerlessness, injustice and alienation experienced by workers in different industrial relations contexts? Q.2. In the context of worker insecurity, what are the material, moral and social deprivations experienced by workers in different industrial relations contexts? Q.3. What are the responses of workers to the experience of worker insecurity in different industrial relations contexts? ln order to explore these research questions, empirical data in the form of lived experiences and articulations of workers was accessed through unstructured conversational interviews with 202 workers from the four industrial relations contexts of stateless workers, unorganized sector workers, contract workers and organized sector workers. These four contexts represent a diversity of social and political practices, and allow us to comparatively understand the experience of worker insecurity. Stateless workers from two refugee communities living in India - the Sri Lankan Tamil, and the Tibetan, were engaged with. They included sweater sellers, human rights activists, social workers, daily wage labourers, teachers, unemployed youth, hotel workers, painters, exiled government workers, and musical instrument makers among others. Workers from the unorganized sector included homeless pavement dwellers, hawkers , rickshaw, auto and taxi drivers, porters, daily wage labourers and teachers in unrecognized schools , apart from others. Contract workers included security guards, housekeeping staff, contract teachers, manufacturing and textile sector workers and temporary workers in shopping malls and law firms, among others. Organized sector workers from the public and the private sectors included manufacturing sector workers, software engineers, labour lawyers, trade union activists, HR executives, hospital administrators, bank and insurance workers, police workers, government workers, and workers in educational institutions, among others. Methods of data analysis relied on intellectual traditions with a post-structural emphasis. Long, aesthetic memos were written about events and articulations emerging from the field notes and transcripts. The metaphorical meaning of these events and articulations were sought to be identified. The underlying political processes was sought to be discovered, and existential positions that these events and articulations reflected, were sought to be understood. This analysis provided the basis of a thematic exploration of the lived experiences of worker insecurity. Work contexts are understood through themes of modernity which marginalize culturally situated workers through Universalist ideals, and provide the intellectual apparatus for the practice of insecurity. Work structures are understood through the conceptual imaginaries they represent in liberal practice and how liberal ideals end up creating deep insecurities for workers. Work processes are understood through the subordinating relationships that are imposed on workers, and the creative ways in which they rely on the praxis of the oppressed to overcome these relationships. Work relations indicate the possibilities of a generation of community of workers through which they engage with the insecurities they experience. Work outcomes reflect the various expressions and meanings of performance, and how they marginalize workers. The empirical data contains composites of forms of subjugation, injustice and alienation. Stateless Workers have often witnessed intense ethnic conflicts, cultural marginalization and deprivations of freedom. From these personal histories, and the lack of adequate opportunities, many of them continue to experience intense material deprivations. The extreme material deprivations for workers in the unorganized sector include hunger, lack of shelter, lack of access to health care and education and the everyday reality of having to survive a predatory state. Contract workers experience various forms of exploitation as wages are not paid in time or not paid at all, a constant fear of being out of work, and inability to take care of essential material needs. Organized sector workers experience unfair dismissals, the loss of collective rights, the naturalization and rationalization of insecurity, and the experience of various indignities. In all the four industrial relations contexts, workers have not accepted these insecurities silently, but are engaged in generative resistance to seek material well-being, justice, security and dignity. This study contributes to theory by explicating the way in which several dominant ideals of contemporary existence such as modernity and liberal practice provide the legitimating intellectual apparatus for lived experiences of insecurity. This study contributes to practice by urging organizations, states and human beings to engage with each other in non-subordinating ways, respect the politics and ethics of justice, and accept that there are several aspects of the human condition that need to defy and transcend instrumental rationality.