Speaking at a seminar on `Trade Unions, Workers' Consciousness and Labour Process', organised by the Centre for Social Studies, Krishanaswamy said despite many pitfalls, trade unions would continue to play an important role for the betterment of workers' conditions at the work place and was one of the important factors in shaping the labour process of the hosiery industry in Tiruppur.

Traditionally, Tiruppur had been a market place for cotton with three cotton textile mills set up there as early as in 1930, but the growth of hosiery production was very slow till 1947. It was only in 1960 and after much protest that the government issued notification for implementing the minimum wages, ranging from a rupee to Rs 2.5 per day, under the Minimum Wages Act, 1948.

According to Krishanaswamy, though about 70 per cent of the factories had at least four unions, only one of them played a dominant role. In 20 per cent of the factories, two unions had almost equal membership and competed with each other.

While in 80 per cent of the factories there were always some workers who were not members of any trade union, in 60 per cent of the factories the non-members out-numbered trade union members, he said.

Despite militant trade unionism and high degree of politicisation, the total trade union membership was only around 40 per cent of the work force and less than 10 per cent of the trade union members took active part in the day-to-day union activities.

All the unions had factory-level leaders, commonly called `Company Leaders' and becoming one was a stepping stone in staking claim to a place in the leadership hierarchy of the trade union as well as the respective political party.

Traditionally, leadership of the trade unions remained with men only and the only union which had a few women leader, although at the lower level, was CITU. As a result all women workers were excluded from important decision making activities.

However, compared to child workers, women were better placed as they could at least go to the unions when they faced a problem, he said, pointing out the plight of child workers in the hosiery industry.

The irregularity of work in the hosiery industry forced the workers to keep shifting from one factory to another. Since most of the factories were not registered under the Factories Act and the government too was not keen on implementing some of the labour laws, 80 per cent of the employers employed workers only on temporary basis, he alleged, adding that to avoid trade union interference, they mostly employed women and children.