Monaco, Lorenza; (2019) Emerging Insecurities: Precarization of Employment Relations in the Indian and South African Auto Industries. Labour, Capital and Society , 49 (1) pp. 55-85.

Text Pages from 49.1 - Monaco (2)(pv).pdf - Published Version Access restricted to UCL open access staff until 30 January 2026. Download (533kB)

Abstract

By comparing two different casualization regimes in the auto industry, the contract labour system in India and the employment of workers through labour brokers in South Africa, the present article engages with the idea that the precariat may be considered a new, global class in the making. While acknowledging a global, dangerous tendency to rely on casual labour as a competitive advantage, the article rejects the attempt to adopt universalizing categories. It rather invites the reader to look at the local embeddedness of casualization, and in particular at industrial development trajectories, labour market specificities and institutional settings that affect the lived experience of precarity. Ultimately, homogenizing definitions, especially those excluding the reality of precarity in the Global South, not only lead to a limited theoretical understanding of the multiple shades of casualization but may tend towards an over-simplification of global political strategies, not reflecting the complexity of grassroots dynamics of class formation and struggle.

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