Labour

The five-month old strike in 60 mills spells out a crisis in the institutional framework of capital-labour relations in the Bombay's cotton textile industry. The persistence of the strike has surprised the employers as well as the government, who expected the strike to fizzle-out in a few weeks.

During the drawn-out textile strike in Bombay in 1928, in which communists for the first time played an active rote in an industrial conflict, the multiclass front teas broken as a consequence of the workers' independent action against the entrepreneurs as a class. Even before the no less dramatic strike in 1929, the communist leaders had consolidated their position, and fought at the helm of a one lakh strong organisation.

Textile unionism has been, like unionism in the railways and coal mines in India, industrial unionism, characterised by long drawn out general strikes. Today, as Bombay textile workers have entered into a seemingly indefinite strike, they do so in the context of fundamental changes which have occurred in the last 20 years in the industry; changes which could transform the nature of textile unionism. From the 1918 general strike, which covered 80 mills and involved one lakh and forty thousand workers, up to the present, Bombay textile workers have launched industrial actions which have drawn together workers from the whole industry. These strikes have thrown up different forms of organisations like the Girni Kamgar Union and the mill committees; which were formed as a result of the general strikes of 1924-25 and the six-month long struggle of 1928. These represented the coalescence of two tendencies

For many years the Bombay City cotton textile industry has been a favourite meadow for academic browsing. The importance of the industry is one factor accounting for this interest. Another is the fact that Bombay University is a degree-granting institution with a great need for topics for MA and PhD dissertations. Not least in the array of features accounting for academic preoccupation wit h the industry is the fact that probably no other Indian industry has been as well-served for so long with documentation and statistical material. For this last characteristic we are primarily indebted to the Millowners' Association, Bombay whose annual reports, memoranda to official bodies and miscellaneous publications have been a major source of information.