In this first comparative study of organized labor in India and Pakistan, the author analyses the impact and role of organized labor in democratization and development. The study provides a unique comparative history of Indian and Pakistani labor politics. It begins in the early twentieth century, when permanent unions first formed in the South Asian Subcontinent. Additionally, it offers an analysis of changes in conditions of work and terms of service in India and Pakistan and of organized labor's response. The conclusions shed new light on the influence of organized labor in national politics, economic policy, economic welfare and at the workplace. It is demonstrated that the protection of workers has desirable outcomes not only for those workers covered but also for democratic practice and for economic development.

Class explains much in the differentiation of life chances and political dynamics in South Asia; scholarship from the region contributed much to class analysis. Yet class has lost its previous centrality as a way of understanding the world and how it changes. This outcome is puzzling; new configurations of global economic forces and policy have widened gaps between classes and across sectors and regions, altered people's relations to production, and produced new state-citizen relations. Does market triumphalism or increased salience of identity politics render class irrelevant? Has rapid growth in aggregate wealth obviated long-standing questions of inequality and poverty? Explanations for what happened to class vary, from intellectual fads to global transformations of interests. The authors ask what is lost in the move away from class, and what South Asian experiences tell us about the limits of class analysis. Empirical chapters examine formal and informal-sector labor, social movements against genetic engineering, and politics of the "new middle class." A unifying analytical concern is specifying conditions under which interests of those disadvantaged by class systems are immobilized, diffused, co-opted or autonomously recognized and acted upon politically: the problematic transition of classes in themselves to classes for themselves.

In this first comparative study of organized labour in India and Pakistan, the author analyses the impact and role of organized labour in the political and economic development of these two countries. Beginning with the early twentieth century, when permanent unions first formed in the South Asian sub-continent, it provides a unique comparative history of Indian and Pakistani labour politics. Additionally, it offers an analysis of changes in conditions of work and terms of service in India and Pakistan and of organized labours' response. Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are also discussed for further comparative clarification throughout the text. The conclusions shed new light on the impact of organized labour in the field of national politics, economic policy, economic welfare and the situation at the workplace-level. It is demonstrated that the protection of workers has desirable outcomes not only for those workers covered but also for democratic practice and for economic development.

The Politics of Labor in a Global Age analyses and compares changing patterns of labour relations in late-industrializing and post-socialist economies. The volume features original and timely essays on the distinctive responses to common economic pressures associated with globalization as late-developing economies engage in economic liberalization and post-socialist economies cope with the dismantling of command economies.