In Indian popular culture, after the defensive era of trade unions in the '70s and '80s, the unionism and trade union activities were viewed as disruptive and anti-social in nature. one of the few reasons behind such change in collective imagination are 1) the development rhetoric where unions become a barrier to economic progress and productivity 2) the change from socialist narrative to unipolar post-soviet American 'ways'. And economy 3) opening of Indian markets to privatization. This article gives a detailed perspective of what happened in United States industrial relations, which is considered as a model to be followed by other third world countries like India and how they got obsessed with the other two points mentioned above.
This artefact also gives a detailed picture of different kinds of theories and schools in the anthropology of labour, and how significant it is in the empirical level. as a student of tech and labour, theories such as ' collective action gives insights to the modus operandi of most of the Indian unions, which forgot about organizing and focused on servicing upon existing members.
