Teitelbaum
Partners in Production or Crime?
19
Trinamool Congress Party. Seventeen percent of companies in Kerala and 8 percent of
companies in West Bengal reported the presence of the CPI-affiliated All India Trade Union
Congress (AITUC).
Surprisingly, the survey also shows that the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS), affiliated
to the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has a strong presence in Kerala. Ashutosh
Varshney and others have touted Kerala as a bastion of secularism, the foundation of which is
supposedly the civic sense generated by Communist mobilization of the working class (Varshney
200?). That 37 percent of unionized companies in Kerala reported the presence of the BMS is
surprising since the union movement represents the heart of the historic Communist mobilization
in Kerala. It is especially surprising considering the lack of penetration by the BMS and its sister
organization, the Shiv Sena-affiliated Bharatiya Kamgar Sangh (BKS) to penetrate the union
movement in the ostensibly less civic state of Maharashtra.
The survey results also confirm the initial perception that unincorporated unions are rare
in West Bengal and Kerala but represent the dominant form of worker representation in
Maharashtra and Sri Lanka. Unincorporated unions were present in 17 percent of unionized
companies surveyed in West Bengal and 11 percent of unionized companies in Kerala. In
Maharashtra, 66 percent of unionized companies reported the presence of an unincorporated
union and in Sri Lanka, the figure was a whopping 92 percent.
The major difference between Maharashtra and Sri Lanka is the higher presence of small-
party and politically independent parent unions in Sri Lanka than in Maharashtra, and a higher
presence of internal unions in Maharashtra than in Sri Lanka. In Sri Lanka, 59 percent of
unionized companies reported the presence of a union affiliated to a small political party, 57
Convention