Abstract
This chapter traces the history of the debate on equal remuneration in India from the colonial period, and then analyses the interaction between the government of India, the International Labour Organization and workers’ and women’s organisations in the quest for gender parity in remuneration during the course of the twentieth century. It contributes to our understanding of the role of global concepts for workers in multiple ways. First, it sheds light on the intersections of different scales, the local, the national and the international, and brings out how advances in global norms and international political opportunity structures can be used by national actors. Second, it shows that, despite the limited achievement of equal remuneration for men and women, the concept has been used in a broader sense to demand equal remuneration for the same or similar work independent of gender. In this sense, the struggle of women’s movements and worker’s organisations has provided a tool applicable to other forms of wage discrimination and has, in fact, been used in the broader struggle for wage justice.
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Notes
- 1.
We want to thank the staff of the reading room at the CWDS, the archival staff at the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library (NMML); Renana Jhabvala and Amarjit Kaur for taking time from union organising to answer our questions; Barbro Budin, Reiko Tsushima, Indu Agnihotri, Neetha, Indrani Mazumdar, Kamala Sankaran, Rana Behal, Shivangi Jaiswal, and Chitra Sinha. This chapter is the outcome of an interaction and paper presentations at the Feminist Labour History Conference in Bologna, 2019.
- 2.
ILO Ratifications of C100—Equal Remuneration Convention, 1951 (No. 100), latest retrieved at http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:11300:0::NO:11300:P11300_INSTRUMENT_ID:312245:NO, 1 February 2018.
- 3.
Institute of Social Studies Trust, The Experience in Implementations of the Equal Remuneration Act (ERA), 1976 (New Delhi: Institute of Social Studies Trust, 2010); Acharya Sarthi, “The Equal Remuneration Act of 1976: An Assessment Based on the Views of Unions and Officials,” Indian Journal of Labour Economics 39, no. 1 (1996): 129–143; Puja Vasudeva Dutta, “Accounting for Wage Inequality in India,” Indian Journal of Labour Economics 48 (2005): 273–295; Preet Rustagi, “Understanding Gender Inequalities in Wages and Incomes in India,” Indian Journal of Labour Economics 48 (2005): 319–334; V. Nirmala et al., “Genderwise Minimum Wages, Wage Differentials and Determinants: A Micro Analysis of Agricultural Labourers,” Indian Journal of Labour Economics 41 (1998): 339–349; Sita Divakaran, “Gender Based Wage and Job Discrimination in Urban India,” Indian Journal of Labour Economics 39 (1996): 234–257; I. Narenda Kumar et al., “Gender Discrimination in Agricultural Wages: A Case Study in Kurnool District of Andhra Pradesh,” in Towards Gender Equality: India’s Experience, ed. N. Linga Murthy (New Delhi: Serials Publication, 2007): 260–278; Deshpande Sudha, and Lalit Deshpande, Gender-Based Discrimination in the Urban Labour Market in India. Paper Prepared for the Seminar on “Gender and Employment in India: Trends Patterns and Policy Implications” Organized by the Indian Society of Labour Economics in Collaboration with the Institute of Economic Growth, Delhi 18–20 December 1996.
- 4.
Institute of Social Studies Trust, The Experience in Implementations: 8–9.
- 5.
Charles Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978); Dough McAdam et al., Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements, Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures, and Cultural Framings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Sidney Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); and Sidney Tarrow, The New Transnational Activism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005): 23.
- 6.
Silke Neunsinger, “The Unobtainable Magic of Numbers: Equal Remuneration, the ILO and the International Trade Union Movement, 1950s–1980s,” in Women’s ILO: Transnational Networks, Global Labour Standards and Gender Equity, 1919 to Present, eds. Eileen Boris et al. (Leiden and Boston, MA: Brill, 2018): 121–148.
- 7.
Paula Määttä, The ILO Principle of Equal Pay and Its Implementation (Tampere: Tampere University Press, 2008).
- 8.
Sankaran Kamala, Freedom of Association in India and International Labour Standards (Gurgaon, HR, India: LexisNexis Butterworths Wadhwa Nagpur, 2009): 24–25.
- 9.
M.V. Shobhana Warrier, Class and Gender: A Study of Women Workers in the Cotton Textile Industry of Madras, Madurai and Coimbatore, 1914–1951 (Unpublished PhD thesis, JNU, New Delhi, 1993): 68.
- 10.
Sankaran, Freedom of Association.
- 11.
Eileen Boris, “Equality’s Cold War: The ILO and The UN Commission on the Status of Women, 1946–1970s,” in Women’s ILO: Transnational Networks, Global Labour Standards and Gender Equity, 1919 to Present, eds. Eileen Boris et al. (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2018): 97–120; Ragnheiður Kristjándóttir and Silke Neunsinger, A Global Grammar of Equal Pay Struggles 1900–1985. Paper Presented at the ELHN Conference “New Perspectives in Feminist Labour History: Work and Activism” Held at the University of Bologna, 17–18 January 2019.
- 12.
Legislative Department Proceedings, A, No. 118–338, April 1881, National Archives of India (N.A.I.). Also Home Judicial, A, No. 405–468, February, 1896, N.A.I. and the Indian Factory Commission Report, 1908, London, N.A.I.
- 13.
New India, 23-3-1920, Madras Labour Conference, NMML. The conference saw a resolution moved by C. Rajagopalachari, prominent leader of the Indian National Congress, urging the government to appoint a committee with some female members to enquire into the conditions of female workers in the factories and suggest recommendations.
- 14.
Warrier, Class and Gender.
- 15.
B.P. Wadia, Labour in Madras, Madras, 1921: 116. Public Ordinary (conf.) G.O. 388, 3-7-1919 Tamil Nadu Archives, Madras (T.N.A.); D. Veeraraghavan and T. Thangappan, “Class Conflict and the Colonial State in Madras Presidency Up to 1918,” South Asia Bulletin 10, no. 1 (1990): 1–11; Development Dept. G.O. 940–940 A, 3-7-1923, T.N.A.
- 16.
New India, 23-3-1920, Madras Labour Conference, NMML.
- 17.
Law General, G.O. 1846, 7-11-1921, T.N.A. In Madras, G. Slater et al. in a survey pointed out the inadequacy of wages for workers to eke out a living. This was the understanding of labour leaders such as B.P. Wadia and B. Shiva Rao, the Chief Inspector of Factories and the Commissioner of Labour, who attributed worker strife to lower wages.
- 18.
M.V. Shobhana Warrier, “Condition of Women Workers in Madras, Madurai and Coimbatore, 1914–1939,” Social Scientist 19 (1991): 42–59.
- 19.
Colin Creighton, “The Rise of the Male Breadwinner Family: A Reappraisal,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 38 (1996): 310–337.
- 20.
Samita Sen, “Gendered Exclusion: Domesticity and Dependence in Bengal,” International Review of Social History 55 (1997): 65–86, discusses in detail the nature of subjugation that women experience because of marriage and domesticity and how women could not migrate without their husband’s permission. Also Samita Sen, “Migration and Marriage: Labouring Women in Bengal in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,” in Exploring Gender Equations: Colonial and Post Colonial India, eds. Shakti Kak and Biswamoy Pati (New Delhi: NMML, 2005): 203–230.
- 21.
Development Dept. G.O. 3189, 20-8-1946, T.N.A.; “Labour Supplement,” New India, 10 April 1920. There already was the argument that women should receive the same pay as men for equal work performed.
- 22.
Development Dept. G.O. 2711, 6-12-1937, T.N.A.
- 23.
The Hindu, 18-4-1949, Report on the Textile worker’s conference at Coimbatore.
- 24.
Development Dept. G.O. 2711, 6-12-1937, T.N.A.
- 25.
Development Dept. G.O. 3189, 20-8-1946, T.N.A.
- 26.
AITUC collection, F. No. 147, AITUC Repression of Workers in Bengal and Madras, Labour Policy, NMML.
- 27.
Development Dept. (MS) G.O. 1938, 13-05-1950, T.N.A.
- 28.
Development Dept. G.O. 4701, 20-11-1950, T.N.A.
- 29.
Development Dept. G.O. 3370, 28-8-1950, T.N.A. Minimum Wage Legislation. Also stated was that the minimum wage in the Madras textile Industry was Rs. 30 for men, Rs. 26 for women.
- 30.
Määttä, The ILO Principle of Equal Pay.
- 31.
Development Department (MS), G.O. 1938, 13-05-1950 T.N.A.; AITUC, F188, 180–188, NMML, Delhi. Also, AITUC F279, NMML, brings out that even prior to the Minimum Wages Act 1948, unions were demanding a higher minimum wage.
- 32.
Kristjánsdóttir and Neunsinger, A Global Grammar.
- 33.
K.P. Kannan, Interrogating Inclusive Growth: Poverty and Inequality in India (New Delhi: Routledge, 2014): 192, https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/---sro-new_delhi/documents/publication/wcms_597270.pdf: 113–121.
- 34.
Chitra Sinha, Debating Patriarchy: The Hindu Code Bill Controversy in India (1941–1956) (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012): 113.
- 35.
Geraldine Forbes, Geraldine, Women in Modern India, The New Cambridge History of India. IV, 2 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004): 223.
- 36.
Ilina Sen, “Women’s Politics in India,” in Handbook of Gender, ed. Raka Ray (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012): 521; See also Sinha, Debating Patriarchy: 140; Devaki Jain, Women, Development, and the UN: A Sixty-Year Quest for Equality and Justice (Himayatnagar, Hyderabad, India: Orient Longman, 2006): 25.
- 37.
See List of ratifications, http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=1000:11300:9073211948106::::P11300_INSTRUMENT_SORT:1, last accessed 16 January 2018. It could also be argued that only 23 states had ratified the convention, as Belarus and Ukraine were part of the Soviet Union at the time of ratification.
- 38.
Article 43 of the Constitution of India. Living wage, etc., for workers: ‘The State shall endeavour to secure, by suitable legislation or economic organisation or in any other way, to all workers, agricultural, industrial or otherwise, work, a living wage, conditions of work ensuring a decent standard of life and full enjoyment of leisure and social and cultural opportunities and, in particular, the State shall endeavour to promote cottage industries on an individual or co-operative basis in rural areas’; Kamala Sankaran, “Labour Laws and the World of Work,” in Towards Legal Literacy: An Introduction to Law in India, eds. Kamala Sankaran and Ujjwal Kumar Singh (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008): 124.
- 39.
Institute of Social Studies Trust, The Experience in Implementations: 2–4.
- 40.
According to Armstrong, Mazumdar did not see any effects of the outcome of the Committee before the 1980s, but the Committee did demand equal remuneration legislation. See Elisabeth Armstrong, Gender and Neoliberalism: The All India Democratic Women’s Association and Globalization Politics (New Delhi: Tulika Books, 2013).
- 41.
Forbes, Women in Modern India: 226; Vina Mazumdar, Memories of a Rolling Stone (New Delhi: Zubaan, 2010); Mala Khullar, “Emergence of the Women’s Movement in India,” Asian Journal of Women’s Studies 2 (1997): 94–129; and Armstrong, Gender and Neoliberalism: 47–52.
- 42.
The report was published by the Ministry of Education and Social Welfare under the title Towards Equality: Report of the Research Committee on the Status of Women in India and by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) under the title Status of Women in India: A Synopsis of the Report of the National Committee on the Status of Women, 1971–1974 (New Delhi: ICSSR, 1975).
- 43.
ICSSR, Status of Women in India: 13.
- 44.
Mazumdar, Memories of a Rolling Stone.
- 45.
Silke Neunsinger, “Judgements of the Supreme Court Have Come Like Breaths of Fresh Air” Transnational Activism and Equal Remuneration in India 1958–2000. Paper Presented at the AILH Conference Held in NOIDA 26–28 March 2018.
- 46.
It was for example used in the ILO Training Course on Equal Remuneration Convention No. 100, held in Delhi in 28 June 1999, see also Institute of Social Studies Trust, The Experience in Implementations.
- 47.
Air India Versus Nargesh Meerza 1981 retrieved from https://indiankanoon.org/, accessed 12 June 2019.
- 48.
Mackinnon Mackenzie and Co. Ltd. vs Audrey D’Costa (1987) (2) BomCR 654, (1986) 88 BOMLR 516, retrieved from https://indiankanoon.org/, accessed 12 June 2019.
- 49.
P. Savita and Ors Vs Union of India, Ministry of Defence, retrieved from https://indiankanoon.org/, accessed 12 June 2019.
- 50.
E.g. for partial lifting of the ban on women’s underground work, the violations of hours of work, unemployment and maritime conventions. Sankaran, Freedom of Association: 28.
- 51.
Tarrow, The New Transnational Activism: 27.
- 52.
Sankaran, Freedom of Association: 4. The CEACR also makes general surveys of the situation in each country, and it takes judicial decisions, the labour inspection and the comments of the workers and employers’ representatives into account. After this examination by the CEACR, the conference committee on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations is followed by discussions in the session of the ILC, where government representatives have the possibility of explaining discrepancies discovered or adding new material.
- 53.
Sankaran, Freedom of Association: 6.
- 54.
Sankaran, Freedom of Association: 45.
- 55.
Between 1968 and 2008 the CEACR made 162 observations relating to India, of which 22 observations concerned C100. Two of these (1976 and 1980) were concerned with the proven progress of implementation, while the other 20 related to not satisfying the implementation of the provisions.
- 56.
ILO Archives, Geneva (Hereafter ILOA) ILO 76261 Letter from Nrisingha Chakrabarty to Teja Singh, Ministry of Labour 4 April 1986; ILOA, CEACR observation 1992.
- 57.
Neunsinger, “The Unobtainable Magic”.
- 58.
ILOA 76260, Annual Reports India, Report for the period 1 July 1960 to 30 June 1961 made by the Government of India.
- 59.
ILOA 76260, Annual Reports India, Report for the period 1 July 1959 to 30 June 1960 made by the Government of India in accordance with Art. 22 of the Constitution of the ILO, on the measures taken to give effect to the provisions of C100.
- 60.
ILOA 76260 Report of the Commission of Experts 1971 (in French).
- 61.
ILOA 76260 Letter to ILO Director General from the Government of India, Ministry of labour 30 January 1975.
- 62.
ILOA 76261 Memorandum of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions on the ratified convention no. 100 for the period 1 July 1983 to 30 June 1985.
- 63.
ILOA 76261 Observation by the CEACR 1985.
- 64.
ILOA 76261 Observation by the CEACR 1986.
- 65.
ILOA 76261 Direct Request 1977; Observation 1980; Direct Request 1982; Observation 1991; Observation 1993; Observation 1995; and Observation 1999.
- 66.
ILOA 76261 Report for the period 1 July 1985 to 30 June 1986; ILOA 93631 Report for the period 1 July 1996 to 30 June 1998.
- 67.
ILOA 93631 Letter from P.M. Sirajuddin, Ministry of Labour to W. Blenk, director of the ILO office New Delhi 23 July 1997; Fax from Lee Swepston, Chief Egalité to W. Blenk, director of the ILO office New Delhi, 12 August 1997.
- 68.
ILOA 76261 Memorandum of Centre of Indian Trade Unions on the ratified Convention No. 100 regarding equal remuneration for the period 1 July 1983 to 30 June 1985; Comments of Centre of Indian Trade Unions on the General Survey by the Committee of Experts on the Application on Convention and Recommendation on Equal Remuneration, 3rd item on the Agenda of the 72 session of the ILC 1986; ILOA 93630 Letter from CITU to the Secretary of the CEACR 27 May 1991; ILOA 93631 Letter from CITU to Ministry of Labour 17 March 1998. Also, the National Front of Indian Trade Unions sent a letter of complaint to the Ministry of Labour on 29 February 2000 about the inefficiency of the supervisory machinery.
- 69.
ILOA 76261 Report for the period 1 July 1985 to 30 June 1987.
- 70.
ILOA 93630 Report for the period 1 July 1989 to 30 June 1991.
- 71.
ILOA 76261 Report for the period 1 July 1983 to 30 June 1985.
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Creighton, Colin, “The Rise of the Male Breadwinner Family: A Reappraisal,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 38 (1996): 310–337.
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Dutta, Puja Vasudeva, “Accounting for Wage Inequality in India,” Indian Journal of Labour Economics 48 (2005): 273–295.
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Khullar, Mala, “Emergence of the Women’s Movement in India,” Asian Journal of Women’s Studies 2 (1997): 94–129.
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Määttä, Paula, The ILO Principle of Equal Pay and Its Implementation (Tampere: Tampere University Press, 2008).
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Neunsinger, Silke, “Judgements of the Supreme Court Have Come Like Breaths of Fresh Air” Transnational Activism and Equal Remuneration in India 1958–2000. Paper Presented at the AILH Conference Held in NOIDA 26–28 March 2018.
Nirmala, V. et al., “Genderwise Minimum Wages, Wage Differentials and Determinants: A Micro Analysis of Agricultural Labourers,” Indian Journal of Labour Economics 41 (1998): 339–349.
Sankaran, Kamala, Freedom of Association in India and International Labour Standards (Gurgaon, HR, India: LexisNexis Butterworths Wadhwa Nagpur, 2009).
Sankaran, Kamala, “Labour Laws and the World of Work,” in Towards Legal Literacy: An Introduction to Law in India, eds. Kamala Sankaran and Ujjwal Kumar Singh (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2008): 119–131.
Sen, Ilina, “Women’s Politics in India,” in Handbook of Gender, ed. Raka Ray (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012): 519–538.
Sen, Samita, “Gendered Exclusion: Domesticity and Dependence in Bengal,” International Review of Social History 55 (1997): 65–86.
Sen, Samita, “Migration and Marriage: Labouring Women in Bengal in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,” in Exploring Gender Equations: Colonial and Post Colonial India, eds. Shakti Kak and Biswamoy Pati (New Delhi: NMML, 2005): 203–230.
Sinha, Chitra, Debating Patriarchy: The Hindu Code Bill Controversy in India (1941–1956) (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2012).
Rustagi, Preet, “Understanding Gender Inequalities in Wages and Incomes in India,” Indian Journal of Labour Economics 48 (2005): 319–334.
Tarrow, Sidney, Power in Movement: Social Movements and Contentious Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Tarrow, Sidney, The New Transnational Activism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
Tilly, Charles, From Mobilization to Revolution (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978).
Veeraraghavan, D., and T. Thangappan, “Class Conflict and the Colonial State in Madras Presidency Up to 1918,” South Asia Bulletin 10, no. 1 (1990): 1–11.
Warrier, M.V. Shobhana, “Condition of Women Workers in Madras, Madurai and Coimbatore, 1914–1939,” Social Scientist 19 (1991): 42–59.
Warrier, M.V. Shobhana, Class and Gender: A Study of Women Workers in the Cotton Textile Industry of Madras, Madurai and Coimbatore, 1914–1951 (Unpublished PhD thesis, JNU, New Delhi, 1993).
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Neunsinger, S., Warrier, M.V.S. (2020). Transnational Activism and Equal Remuneration in India During the Twentieth Century. In: Bellucci, S., Weiss, H. (eds) The Internationalisation of the Labour Question. Palgrave Studies in the History of Social Movements. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28235-6_15
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