Wages, unions, and labour productivity

Evidence from Indian cotton mills

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3473554
AutoresBishnupriya Gupta (University of Warwick, autor de correspondencia)
Año2011
Volumen64
Números1
Páginas76-98
Fecha de publicación2011-02-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Economic History Review (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0013-0117 • E-ISSN: 1468-0289
EditorialWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1468-0289.2010.00528.x
OpenAlexW1495905315
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas13
Referencias citadas33

Clark and Wolcott attribute the low productivity of Indian cotton textile workers to their preference for low work effort, and suggest that unions resisted an increase in work intensity. This article argues that low wages were due to surplus labour in agriculture. Low wages allowed the persistence of managerial inefficiencies and resulted in low productivity and work effort. It uses firm-level data from all the textile producing regions in India to examine the relationship between unions and labour productivity. The findings show that fewer workers were employed per machine in the unionized mills in Bombay and Ahmedabad, compared to the mills in less unionized regions. These findings suggest that unionization increased wages and compelled managers to raise productivity

Agriculture · Economic growth · Economics · Geography · Labour economics · Political science · Preference · Productivity · Textile · Textile industry · Work (physics) · Engineering · Global trade and economics · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Labor Movements and Unions · Law