When Priya joined a garment factory in Bengaluru’s export zone, she thought she had found stability. The factory was modern, produced for international brands, and appeared “formal” in every way. Yet, within weeks, she realized something was off. Her employment letter mentioned she was on contract, her wages were paid in cash without proper records, and when she asked about benefits, supervisors told her those were only for permanent staff. Priya’s story isn’t unique-it reflects a complex reality where women workers in India’s booming export economy operate in a gray zone between formal and informal work, prompting the emergence of what scholars call “new unionism.”
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What exactly is new unionism?
New unionism represents an innovative approach to worker organization that emerged specifically to address the unique challenges faced by women in export-oriented manufacturing industries. Unlike traditional trade unions that focus on factory-gate organizing and collective bargaining within established employer-employee relationships, new unionism recognizes that many women workers today occupy ambiguous employment categories that don’t fit conventional labor organizing models.
The term captures a fundamental shift in how worker organizing happens. Traditional organizing methods simply don’t work when workers are classified as contract laborers, home-based piece workers, or temporary employees despite working in officially registered export units. New unionism adapts by moving beyond the factory gates into communities, homes, and informal networks where women workers actually exist.
The paradox of formal informality
Here’s where things get interesting. India’s export sector-particularly garments, electronics, and handicrafts-employs millions of women in enterprises that are technically part of the formal economy. These factories are registered businesses, they export to major international brands, and they operate in designated Export Processing Zones and Special Economic Zones. On paper, everything looks legitimate.
But look closer and a different picture emerges. Women working in these “formal” settings frequently face highly informal conditions. They’re hired through contractors rather than directly by companies. Their work is temporary or seasonal, shifting with order volumes. They lack written contracts, proper wage slips, or access to statutory benefits like provident funds and health insurance. When export processing zones demand union-free environments, workers have nowhere to turn when rights are violated.
This creates what researchers describe as the informalization of formal work. Women aren’t street vendors or agricultural laborers-the traditional face of India’s informal economy. They work in air-conditioned factories producing goods worth billions. Yet their employment relationships remain precarious, their voices unheard, their legal protections minimal. Traditional unions, designed for permanent industrial workers with clear employers, struggle to represent them effectively.
Why women workers specifically?
The export boom has dramatically increased women’s participation in manufacturing. India’s garment sector, for instance, saw female employment grow faster than male employment, with women’s share rising from thirty percent to over forty percent. Employers actively recruit women, perceiving them as more docile, less likely to unionize, and willing to accept lower wages.
But this feminization of export labor comes with specific vulnerabilities. Women workers often migrate from rural areas, lack education and awareness of their rights, face family and social pressures that limit their ability to protest, and juggle domestic responsibilities alongside factory work. When traditional union structures remain dominated by men and focus on macro-level policy dialogue, women’s particular concerns around safety, childcare, harassment, and work-life balance get sidelined.
How new unionism works differently
New unionism isn’t just traditional organizing with a fresh coat of paint. It fundamentally reimagines what a labor organization can be and do. The most successful example comes from the Self-Employed Women’s Association, founded in 1972 by Ela Bhatt. While SEWA initially focused on self-employed workers like street vendors and home-based producers, its model has inspired organizing efforts among women in export industries who face similar precarity.
The key innovation is community-based organizing. Rather than waiting at factory gates, organizers go where women live-into neighborhoods, markets, and homes. They build trust through regular presence and personal relationships. A woman who might fear retaliation for joining a union at work feels safer connecting with organizers in her community. This approach recognizes that women’s lives aren’t neatly separated into work and home spheres-their struggles span both domains.
Beyond bread and butter issues
New unionism also expands what counts as a labor issue. Yes, wages and working conditions matter. But so do childcare facilities, protection from sexual harassment, safety during commutes, access to savings and credit, healthcare for families, and skills training for better opportunities. SEWA’s organizing model addresses workers’ needs as both laborers and women, recognizing that economic security requires social security too.
This holistic approach resonates particularly with women workers who shoulder multiple burdens. A garment worker earning slightly better wages still struggles if she has nowhere safe to leave her children, faces harassment traveling to night shifts, or can’t save money because exploitative moneylenders charge crushing interest rates. New unions tackle these interconnected challenges rather than treating them as separate from “real” labor issues.
The organizational forms also differ. Instead of single large unions, new unionism often involves cooperatives, self-help groups, producer collectives, and federated networks. Women might join savings groups that gradually build awareness and solidarity, then transition into more formal organizing. This incremental approach works better for workers who lack experience with collective action and fear employer retaliation.
Challenges and resistance
New unionism faces significant obstacles. Employers in export zones actively resist unionization, sometimes through outright intimidation but often through subtler tactics. They classify workers as contract labor to avoid legal obligations. They rotate workers between locations to prevent stable organizing. They create multiple tiers of employment within the same workplace, dividing workers who should be allies.
Government policies often favor employers over workers in these zones, relaxing labor law enforcement to attract foreign investment. When laws aren’t enforced, even having rights on paper means little in practice. The sheer scale of informalization also overwhelms organizing capacity-with millions of women scattered across thousands of small production units, reaching everyone becomes an enormous challenge.
Additionally, new unions must navigate tensions with traditional union federations. Established unions sometimes view community-based organizing with suspicion, seeing it as insufficiently militant or too focused on service provision rather than confrontation with capital. Finding common ground between different organizing philosophies remains an ongoing negotiation.
Small victories and long-term change
Despite these hurdles, new unionism has achieved meaningful wins. Women’s unions in export sectors have successfully negotiated for better piece rates, improved safety conditions, and dignified treatment. More importantly, they’ve built women’s confidence and leadership skills. Workers who initially could barely speak up in meetings become organizers and leaders themselves, transforming not just their economic situations but their sense of agency and self-worth.
Policy changes reflect this organizing success too. India’s recognition of SEWA as a central trade union in 2009, legislation around unorganized sector workers, and greater attention to informal employment all owe debts to decades of grassroots organizing. While much remains to be done, these represent real institutional acknowledgment of workers who were previously invisible to policy makers.
What does the future hold?
As global supply chains continue evolving and India’s export economy grows, the tension between formal enterprise structures and informal employment practices will likely persist. Employers benefit too much from flexibility and cost savings to voluntarily regularize their workforces. This means new unionism’s relevance will only increase.
The challenge ahead involves scaling successful models without losing their community-based strengths, building solidarity across fragmented workforces, leveraging technology for organizing while guarding against new forms of algorithmic control, and convincing policy makers that protecting workers in export zones strengthens rather than weakens economic growth. It’s about proving that fair treatment and economic efficiency aren’t opposites but complements.
For women workers like Priya, new unionism offers something traditional organizing never could-recognition of her complete reality as a worker, a woman, a mother, and a person with dignity and rights. It acknowledges that her struggles don’t fit neatly into old categories but are no less legitimate for their complexity. And it builds power not through confrontation alone but through solidarity, mutual support, and the collective strength that comes when invisible workers finally see themselves reflected in organizations designed for them.
What do you think? How can organizing strategies better address the specific challenges women face in India’s export industries? What role should government policy play in supporting workers whose employment exists in the gray zone between formal and informal?
References
- https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9780230524217_4
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/irj.12340
- https://www.researchgate.net/publication/304692948_Globalization_Export-oriented_Employment_for_Women_and_Social_Policy_A_Case_Study_of_India
- https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6183862/
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14747731.2021.1877972
- https://www.sewa.org/about-us
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