Making Cars in the New India
Industry, Precarity and Informality

Studies labour relations in the Indian auto industry by drawing upon a range of critical social and economic theories.

Tom Barnes (Author)

9781108422130, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 3 May 2018

274 pages
23.4 x 15.7 x 2.3 cm, 0.48 kg

'Barnes' book is a very useful addition to the literature on global production networks in India. More importantly, it joins a new, vibrant and timely literature concerned with the ways in which the process of labour informalisation manifests regionally across the subcontinent, systematically expanding workers' precarity and vulnerability across a rising number of industrial sectors.' Alessandra Mezzadri, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Auto manufacturing holds the promise of employing many young Indians in relatively well-paid, high-skill employment, but this promise is threatened by the industry's role as a site of immense conflict in recent years. This book asks: how do we explain this conflict? What are the implications of conflict for the ambitious economic development agendas of Indian governments? Based upon extensive field research in India's National Capital Region, this book is the first to focus on labour relations in the Indian auto industry. It proposes the theory that conflict in the auto industry has been driven by twin forces: first, the intersection of global networks of auto manufacturing with regional social structures which have always relied on informal and precariously-employed workers; and, second, the systematic displacement of securely-employed 'regular workers' by waves of precariously-employed 'de facto informal workers'.

Tables, figures and maps
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
1. The limits of industrialisation
2. The auto industry in India today
3. Auto manufacturing and the evolution of industrial policy
4. The transformation of labour relations
5. Auto workers in India's national capital region
6. Work and life at the bottom of the auto supply chain
7. Driving down the 'low road'?
Appendix
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Industry & industrial studies [KN], Economic growth [KCG], Labour economics [KCF], Economics of industrial organisation [KCD], Macroeconomics [KCB], Economics [KC], Central government [JPQ], Political structure & processes [JPH]