The Labour Side of the Story: Informalisation and New Forms of Mobilisation of Kerala’s Women Workers

Abstract

Historically, in the context of Kerala, through mobilisation, electoral and mass struggles and a broad-based alliance of poor peasants, agricultural labour and workers were forged into a political constituency. This paper locates new forms of women workers’ struggles in the post-1990 context which saw a shift in the politics of labour and in the language of class and since the People’s Planning Campaign for democratic decentralisation in Kerala, when agency moved away from trade unions to a plurality of organisations serving a range of objectives but linked with local governance. There was a shift away from exclusive collective bargaining by workers to collective social activity, for example, Kudumbashree, Ayalkootam (neighbourhood groups), public works, MNREGA forums and other forms of associational activities. Identities shifted beyond that of workers to citizens, involving a range of rights with the neighbourhood and the local as an axis. This paper focusses on women labour particularly in the context of the trajectory of development and labour in Kerala and the wider canvas in which labour movements developed post the 1980s in India.