Industrial disputes in India a state wise and sector wise analysis

Abstract

The study has sought to examine relative shares of strikes and lockouts in total disputes, intensity of industrial disputes, strikes and lockouts from pre-reform to post-reform periods and has investigated the determinants of disputes, strikes and lockouts state-wise and sector-wise from 1984 to 2014. The analysis is based on secondary sources of data. The dependent variables are: mandays lost in disputes/strikes/lockouts per worker. These are regressed on average wages, workers unionisation, capital labour ratio, share of contract workers, average plant size, average firm size, share of profits, wage productivity ratio, real gross domestic product, foreign direct investment and two dummy variables for election years and economic reforms respectively. Time series analysis and dummy variable technique is used. The study has highlighted that strikes have dominant share in disputes in most of the states in pre- and post-reform periods. However, the share of lockouts has shown a rise especially in the immediate period following the implementation of economic reforms which implies that introduction of economic reforms has shifted the balance of bargaining power in the favour of the employers. The intensity of disputes, strikes and lockouts has also increased in majority states from pre-reform to post-reform periods and this is particularly found in private sector. Lastly, all the independent variables are found to significantly affect disputes, strikes and lockouts in most of the states and in public and private sectors of each state. newline