The international conference ‘Labour Questions’ in the Global South was held from 18–20 November 2015 at the Convention Centre, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. The conference was jointly organised by the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning (CESP), JNU; Centre for Informal Sector and Labour Studies (CISLS), JNU; Agrarian South Network; and Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South (CARES).
The conference brought together scholars, researchers, trade unionists, practitioners and activists from India and other parts of the Global South to critically examine contemporary transformations in labour, employment and workers’ organisations. It sought to situate the labour question within broader processes of neoliberal restructuring, changing patterns of accumulation, globalisation and the transformation of labour markets.
The three-day programme addressed a wide range of themes, including unemployment and underconsumption, labour reserves, inequality, labour regulation, global production networks, women’s labour, labour flexibility, social protection and international labour standards. Sessions also explored labour questions in different regions, including Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and India, enabling comparative perspectives on the changing world of work in the Global South.
A significant focus of the conference was on workers’ resistance and organisation, including trade unions, worker cooperatives, peasant-worker cooperatives and alternative institutional forms. Discussions examined the challenges confronting labour organisations under neoliberalism and explored possibilities for developing new strategies of collective action, social protection and political organisation.
The conference featured contributions from prominent scholars and public intellectuals, including Prabhat Patnaik, Utsa Patnaik, Abhijit Sen, Jayati Ghosh, C.P. Chandrasekhar, Sam Moyo, Paris Yeros, Ravi Srivastava, Christoph Scherrer and several other researchers and representatives of labour organisations.
Through its interdisciplinary and international engagement, the conference provided a critical platform for reflecting on the changing nature of labour and the possibilities for building more equitable and socially just alternatives in the Global South.
