Footloose Labour: Working in India's Informal EconomyIn a penetrating anthropological study of the working poor in India, Jan Breman examines the lives of those who, pushed out of the agrarian labour market, depend on casual work. Beginning his local-level research in two villages in south Gujarat, the author discusses the mobilisation of casual labour, which is hired and fired according to the need of the moment, and transferred for the duration of the job to destinations far away from the home area. His case-study reveals that the circulation of labour is indicative of an employment pattern which dominates both the rural and urban economy of large parts of South Asia. Elaborating on the social profile of the work migrants, the author argues that their identity is shaped by both class and caste relations and, despite action by state agencies, nothing of significance has been achieved to improve their quality of life. |
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
The informal sector reconsidered | 3 |
Global setting | 11 |
Account of research and fieldwork | 15 |
Composition of the study | 19 |
Changing profile of rural labour | 24 |
Outmigration for work | 32 |
Sojourners | 37 |
Use of technology | 118 |
Working hours | 124 |
Degradation in the labour process | 133 |
Mode of wage payment and secondary labour conditions | 141 |
Payment | 148 |
The principle of contracting and subcontracting | 157 |
Bondage | 162 |
Secondary terms of employment | 170 |
Seasonal migration | 43 |
Inflow of labour into south Gujarat | 49 |
Industrial labour in the informal sector | 57 |
Rotation in the urban work arena | 67 |
Influx in the rural hinterland | 71 |
Agrarian labour migrants in Gandevigam and Chikhligam | 80 |
Contact between demand and supply | 84 |
Mediation | 88 |
The jobbergang boss as labour broker | 93 |
Debt bondage | 101 |
Quality of the labour process | 109 |
Common terms and phrases
agrarian agricultural labourers Ahmedabad ateliers basis behaviour Bilimora Bombay bondage branch of industry Breman brick-makers bricks brickworks cane-cutters capital cash advance caste casual labour markets casual workers cent Chikhli Chikhligam Chikhligam and Gandevigam committee contract contractors countryside daily debt bondage Dhodhiyas diamond cutters earn employed employers factory Fieldwork notes fieldwork villages formal sector Gandevigam and Chikhligam gang boss Halpatis harvest households income increase India informal sector informal sector workers jobber Khandeshis labour power lack landless landowners leave less Living Conditions 1984 Maharashtra majority males managed migrant workers milieu minimum wage mobility mukadam Oriya owners paid payment permanent population production proletariat Punalekar and Patel quarries recruitment rural labour S. P. Punalekar saltpans seasonal migrants sector employment slum social south Gujarat Surat textile workers trade union urban economy Vadodara Valsad Valsad districts wage labour workforce workplace workshops worksite