When auto industries move auto plants to a place where labour is cheaper, the jobs that are being created are rarely good jobs. In today's program, we hear about working conditions in the auto plants of the industrial belts of Northern India.
Shivani Kaul is a labour organiser with Bigul Mazdoor Dasta and legal advisor with the Automobile Industry Contract Workers group. She talks about the the campaign to free the imprisoned Maruti Suzuki workers and the difficulties that this campaign faces. The ongoing struggle in Asian automobile factories is also analysed in the context of the ongoing struggles by workers to form independent unions.
Lastly, Shivani gives an assessment of the working class movement in these industrial belts and the effects of ongoing repression by the state and companies on workers ability to organise.
Asia Pacific Currents provides updates of labour struggles and campaigns from the Asia Pacific region. It is produced by Australia Asia Worker Links, in the studio of 3CR Radio in Melbourne, Australia.
Image: Western Express Highway 2, Mumbai.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Western_Express_Highway_2.jpg
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