Trade Unionism in Leather Units in Kolkata:An Exploratory Observation on the Selected Leather Units

The study of trade unionism became a crucial matter in the industrial relations as the relation ship between labour and management is greatly influenced by them. Even , after liberalization , contrary to the prediction of many observers , the significance of the trade unions have not been reduced . The role of the trade unions have been modified rather and have become a key decider of fate of large number of workers specially in the labour intensive industries across the globe. Leather industry is one of the highest employment generating industry in India and as per the estimate the sector can generate about 6 million direct and indirect employment by the end of 2015 , if the 10% growth trend continues . Currently about 2.5 million people are earning their livelihood from this sector across India in different major concentrations like. Though there are thousands of small and medium units are functioning as the unorganized units , yet some large and very large organizations have also come into fray over the years . Trade unionism is a common practice in many of these organizations and the nature of trade union formation experiences a greater variation from small , medium to large organizations. In the small and medium leather organizations trade unions are functioning under the industrial union banner , whereas in large organizations unions are mostly organization specific. The paper attempts to study the extent of workers participation in union activities according to different variables like age, length of service , education , origin etc.