In another shift of policy, the Centre would expect the state governments to acquire the land for the NMIZs, which could be promoted mainly by the private sector. The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) in the Commerce and Industry Ministry has floated a concept paper for the new Manufacturing Policy, seeking views from different stakeholders.

The government has been following the policy under which entrepreneurs have to buy land from farmers at mutually negotiated price. The paper said the objective of the new policy would be to increase share of the manufacturing sector in the country's gross domestic product to 25 per cent from 15 per cent at present. While, proposals such as flexibility to employer for hiring and firing the workforce may not go down well with trade unions, the government claims that the new policy aims at “doubling” the current employment level in the sector. The new policy would be bolder than the Act governing Special Economic Zones. SEZs now do not enjoy the liberty to downsize workforce. “The situation of the manufacturing sector in India is a cause of concern especially when seeing in the context of transformation registered in this sector by other Asian countries in similar stages of development,” the paper said. The NMIZs should even subsume the SEZs, EOUs as well as industrial parks and warehousing zones.

The move has raised hackles among trade unions. But signs and even specific warnings of growing tension and turmoil in industrial relations seem to have been mindlessly ignored by the UPA leadership and its government. This is so obviously because of their overall insensitivity to the concern as against the priorities for business interests.

The response to the death of a CEO of a multinational corporation in Noida in a fracas with the workers, for instance, emphasized this position. The union labour minister had then publicly expressed in his first reaction to this incident as a case of desperate protest action by workers because of their prolonged lay off and should have cautioned against the business interests and government policy of hire and fire by industry. But the Labour Minister had to publicly apologise for hurt he had caused to the employers and he was directed, it seems, by the Prime Minister from New York and the persuasion of several other senior minister in New Delhi to calm down the employers anger. The labour minister seems to have been told that he went not only being inept but also appeared to have offended the policy priority of the government of wooing big business in India, foreign investment and MNCs, in particular.

Structural adjustment or what is called the reform policy of the Indian economy, initiated in 1991 is really aimed at the organized workers as the prime target to be disciplined for its success. Its starting point was “exit policy” for organized industry, that is retrenchment of workers by giving them some compensation even while industry was encouraged to import labour displacing foreign machinery and superior technology to enhance efficiency of the labour force and garner high profits for the owners of capital.

The shift of work force from agriculture to industry and services sectors is certainly necessary to promote economic growth. This has to be a planned exercise and can not yield quick results at the given stage of the development of the economy in India when work force is employed in organized industry at subsistence wages is still a small fraction of total work force in country. It is also quixotic for the policy makers to replace the working people in hurry by machines to improve labour productivity. It is not surprising, therefore, that there is growing discontent among large numbers, employed as well as the unemployed seeking gainful work in industry even as grab of farmers in farmers in rural areas has been fiercely resisted by the farmers and farm workers.

Trade union movement in India, still has a thin social base. But the shift in the focus of trade unions from blue collar workers, that is semi-skilled and unskilled workers, to white collar workers who are highly skilled in sophisticated services has not happened at this stage of the industry in the developing industry. This is because big business corporations in India and abroad to want to take advantage of relatively low cost local workers than what prevails in the developed countries. This has created an odd situation in the trade union movement and has changed the position in favour the development of capital rather than labour - intensive organized industry. What too must not be missed, in this extent is that priority to improve the working conditions of labour is very low and skewed in modern industry set up by multinational corporation and big business in India. The middle and small scale industry in which majority of the workers too are employed at still lower wage levels without social security by foreign capital and Indian big business to garner super profits.

Since the real value of workers wages and uphold their rights in work places are sought to be forcefully curbed, the calm and peaceful industrial peace cannot maintained. It is necessary for recovery of the worker's real wage to at least the level of 1965, the first labour commission recommended, if productive work is to have any sound basis in the development process to make peaceful headway. The real wages of the workers have actually declined in the market-driven economic growth. There has been niggardly compensation for the workers, or improvements in their productivity. On contrary, the share of wages of wages in value added in industry in India has steadily gone down in the last decade and half.

This is a conclusive refutation of the contention sometimes made by the industry as well as the government that wages are a factor in adding to the costs of manufacture which results in inflationary pressure to develop in the economy. Expert calculations in fact, show that the real wage levels in industry have been far less than the increase in labour productivity. The workers in the organized industry are now entitled to at least a need-based minimum wage. (IPA Service)