Trade union leadership in India

As a topic of study trade unions are multi-disciplinary, Economists. political scientists, sociologists, industrial relations experts as well as journalists, lawyers and social workers have written about them. However, there is a distinct lack of empirical studies of trade unions in India, Barring a few such studies much of what is written is impressionistic

In this books the author tries to focus on the leadership aspect of trade unions. In a sense, leadership is a parsimonious way of studying, an organization, because it is through the leaders that any organization is programmed and activated. In the Indian context, this is all the more true, because, for variety of reasons, members are apathetic to their own trade unions, as a result of which Indian trade unions are essentially leader-centred.

Based on interview data of 251 trade union leaders of seven textile unions of Ahmedabad, the author in this book presents a picture of these leaders, which includes their socia economic and personal characteristics, the manner in which they have come up to be leaders at various levels in their trade unions, the type of tasks that they perform for their members, their perception of gains and losses of their role and their views and opinions regarding several important aspects of industrial milieu. The data are analysed separately for outsider and insider leaders as also for the seven trade unions. The book thus provides a comprehensive picture of these trade union leaders.