Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: I am interested in this paper in critically examining the demands of the Indian sex workers’ movement that sex work be treated as a form of labor and sex workers as workers in the informal economy. By assessing the possibilities and challenges of Indian labor laws for a marginalized and stigmatized set of workers operating in the informal economy, I want to undertake a broader critique of labor laws in developing countries like India. In particular, I am interested in pursuing an internal critique of labor laws as it relates to its dismal coverage of the unorganized sector and its flaws when in fact applicable to the unorganized sector. The external critique of labor laws will address issues such as treatment of the coercion/choice dichotomy in labor laws, the legal treatment of intermediaries, the politics of treating certain labor as abject and therefore worthy of abolition, the state centered nature of labor law enforcement as opposed to more community based forms of regulation introduced by new social movements and the inability of labor laws to respond to labor markets characterized by varying modes of organization of labor and the varying degrees of freedom that accompany them. I will conclude the paper with some reflections on the two periods of reform in Indian labor laws (prior to and following the neo-liberal push for reform) and if and how they might provide some direction for the crisis that afflicts labor laws in the industrialized world.