Building a Wider
Horizon With Labour
The leather and leather products industry is one of India’s oldest manufacturing industries that catered to the international market right from the middle of the nineteenth century. The leather industry employs about 2.5 million people and has annual turn over of Rs. 25,000 crores. Due to the age of the industry and its links with the social structure, the organisational structure that has emerged is a very complex one that contains within it elements of continuity with traditional structures as well as those that represent a break with them. This study emphasizes on the key issues that affect the leather industry workers in terms of their working conditions, wage, social and employment security, organization and negotiating capacity. The study was conducted in the three regions of leather production in India: Chennai, Agra and Warangal.
