Teitelbaum
Partners in Production or Crime?
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managers and union leaders in Sri Lanka and the Indian states of Maharashtra, Kerala, and West
Bengal.
2. The debate: partners in production?
Academic discussions of the role of unions in development have polarized between
advocates of broad-based unions with “outside” leadership and advocates of firm-based unions
with “in-house” leadership. Advocates of broad-based unions argue that broad-based unions
provide social stability and greater social and human development by channeling industrial
conflict through institutions and providing a voice for working-class interests (DeSilva 1998;
Fisher 1961; Heller 1999; Kearney 1971; Ramaswamy 1983). Advocates of firm-based
unionism stress the economic detriments of broad-based union organization such as strikes and
opposition to economic liberalization. These authors suggest limiting the leadership and
organization of unions to the firm level in order to derive the benefits of channeling conflict
without the drawbacks of strikes and opposition to liberal policy (DeSchweinitz: 1959; Deyo:
1987; Mehta: 1957; World Bank: 1995).
Studies on both sides of this debate fall short for two reasons. First, they focus too
narrowly on routine strike protest. In doing so they miss the many different ways that workers in
developing countries respond to differences with management such as fasting, obstruction,
occupation, sabotage, gheraos,
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hostage taking, or violent assault.
Second, these authors tend to lump all unions with broad-based membership and outside
leadership into the same category and in doing so fail to recognize crucial differences among
them. In contrast, a number of studies on union behavior in advanced industrial democracies
provide insights into how variations in size (or breadth of membership) and political orientation
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“Gherao” means “encirclement” and is a uniquely South Asian form of protest in which workers surround the
manager and refuse to move until the employer meets their demands.
Convention