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International Conference - Lille, France (3-5 July 2019)

Envisioning the Economy of the Future, and the Future of Political Economy

Emerging insecurities: precarisation of employment relations in the Indian and South African Auto industries
Lorenza Monaco  1@  
1 : University of Johannesburg

Within what appears a generalised race to the bottom, characterised by a widespread
erosion of labour standards and workers' rights both in the Global North and in the
Global South, processes of casualisation and precarisation seem to have touched even
what used to be the most protected industrial segments. Not even the auto industry,
once stronghold of formal employment relations, unionised workforce and relatively
high salaries, has proven to be immune from such trends. This work analyses different
‘shades' of casualisation in the auto industry, referring to two structurally different
contexts: the National Capital Region (NCR, Delhi) in India, and the Gauteng auto cluster,
in South Africa. Ultimately, by comparing two different industrial settings, forms and
degrees of precarisation, and different labour responses, the work also reflects on
opportunities and challenges for labour organising.

 


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