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This article provides information about the impact of globalisation on the condition of labour in India:
Deregulation and privatisation of state enterprises have been key components of structural adjustment programmes introduced by International Financial Institutions as conditionality’s attached to aid packages to developing countries and for the acceleration of economic liberalisation. Labour market deregulation has been an important feature of the structural adjustment programme.
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There has been explicit deregulation, whereby formal regulations have been eroded or abandoned by legislative means, and implicit deregulation whereby remaining regulations have been made less effective through inadequate implementation or systematic bypassing.
Such deregulation has been based on the belief that excessive government intervention in the labour market through such measures as public sector wage and employment policies, minimum wage fixing, and employment security rules is a serious impediment to adjustment and should therefore be removed or relaxed. States around the world has felt compelled to ease labour standards, modify tax regulations and generally relax standards of security and oversight in the bid to attract more and more FDI. This progressively lowered labour standards.
The big corporate companies like TNCs and MNCs have evolved a vendor system of subcontracting for their production. The companies give out their work to labourers, through contractors, who in turn deliver the output to the company. This results in job insecurity of the labourer and worsening of labour welfare since there is no checking system for their welfare. Liberalisation of the economy has in some sectors caused loss of employment without creation of new employment.
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Opening up of the market and free flow of trade and low tariffs encouraged flow of foreign goods lowering the employment opportunities of Indian labourers. For example, thousands of silk spinners and twisters of Bihar have totally lost their job due to the import of China-Korea silk yarn as weavers and consumers prefer this yarn because it is somewhat cheap and shiny. Women have entered the labour force in large numbers in countries that have embraced liberal economic policies. Industrialisation in the context of globalisation is as much female-led as it is export-led.
The overall economic activity rate of women for the age group 20-54 approached 70% in 1996. The highest absorption of women has been witnessed in the export oriented industrial sector. This is especially the case in the export processing zones and special economic zones and in those labour intensive industries that have relocated to developing countries in search of cheap labour. Investors have demonstrated a preference for women in the soft industries such as apparel, shoe- and toy-making, data processing, semi-conductor assembling industries that require unskilled to semi-skilled labour. Nevertheless, this did not ensure a better status for women in any way.
The informal sector where women were absorbed in large numbers along with globalisation offer very poor labour conditions. Such industries where women were mostly engaged happened to be highly labour intensive, service oriented and poorly paid. In many countries workers in the export processing zones find unionisation and collective bargaining nearly impossible. In call centres in India women comprise an estimated 40% of the workforce.