The organisational strength of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Kerala has historically rested on trade unions. For decades, unions were the party’s most effective interface with everyday economic life, translating ideology into tangible protection for workers. In an era of stable employment, identifiable employers, and geographically concentrated workplaces, this model worked. In contemporary Kerala, however, the same union-centric framework increasingly appears misaligned with the structure of work, generating diminishing political returns and, in some cases, active resistance from the very workforce it once represented.
In the post-Independence period, Kerala’s labour market was defined by predictability. Workers in plantations, factories, ports, coir units, and public sector enterprises had long-term employment relationships. Wages were low, conditions were harsh, and bargaining power was minimal. Trade unions played a decisive role in securing minimum wages, regulated working hours, safety norms, and social security. Strikes and collective action were rational tools in a context where employers were fixed and labour was locally rooted. Union power translated directly into material gains.
The economic transition that followed fundamentally altered these assumptions. From the 1980s onwards, Kerala’s workforce began shifting away from organised industry towards services, construction, and overseas employment. Public sector employment expanded initially but later plateaued due to fiscal constraints. By the 2000s, new job creation was overwhelmingly concentrated in informal and semi-formal sectors. According to labour surveys, a large majority of Kerala’s workforce today operates outside formal contracts, even though education levels are high.
This structural change weakened the traditional logic of unionism. Informal workers often lack a single employer, stable wages, or long-term job security. A construction worker may work for multiple contractors in a year. A retail employee may be on short-term contracts. A gig worker operates through platforms rather than factories. In such contexts, the cost of collective action is immediate and personal, while the benefits are uncertain. Missing a day’s work can mean losing income or even employment entirely.
Kerala’s trade union culture, however, remains shaped by an earlier industrial mindset. The language of struggle, resistance, and confrontation continues to dominate, even when the underlying economic terrain has shifted. Hartals and strikes, once symbols of collective power, now disproportionately harm informal workers, small traders, daily-wage earners, and service providers. Data from business associations and labour departments consistently show that shutdowns result in significant daily income losses for precisely those groups that lack savings or institutional protection.
A crucial turning point has been the generational shift in workforce attitudes. Younger workers in Kerala, even when economically insecure, often prioritise continuity of employment over confrontation. They are acutely aware of alternative labour markets outside the state and outside the country. Migration has normalised exit as a strategy. When workers can leave rather than fight, the calculus of unionism changes fundamentally. Collective bargaining loses relevance when individual mobility becomes the dominant form of leverage.
Migrant labour adds another layer of complexity. By the 2010s, Kerala had one of the largest migrant worker populations in India, drawn mainly from eastern and northeastern states. Estimates place their numbers between 3 and 4 million. These workers are essential to construction, manufacturing, and services, yet they are largely outside local political and union networks. Language barriers, legal vulnerability, and lack of voting rights make traditional union mobilisation ineffective. A labour politics that cannot incorporate its largest workforce segment risks irrelevance.
There is also a perception problem that has grown steadily over time. Many professionals and small entrepreneurs now associate unions not with protection but with delay, rigidity, and risk. This perception is not always fair, but it is politically significant. When businesses hesitate to expand or invest due to fear of labour disputes, job creation suffers. In a state already struggling with employment generation, this creates a feedback loop where ideological rigidity indirectly reinforces economic stagnation.
Public sector unions illustrate a different but related issue. They remain powerful, well-organised, and politically influential. However, they represent a shrinking share of the workforce while enjoying relatively high job security, pensions, and benefits. This has created a visible insider–outsider divide. Private sector and informal workers increasingly see public sector unionism as self-protective rather than solidaristic. This perception weakens the moral authority of organised labour as a whole.
Statistical indicators reflect this divergence. While union density remains high in certain sectors, overall workforce coverage has declined relative to total employment. At the same time, labour disputes have shifted away from wages and conditions towards issues of job security, contract renewal, and layoffs. These are harder to address through classical strike-based strategies, especially when employers themselves operate under competitive and volatile market conditions.
The ideological challenge lies in the gap between protection and productivity. Kerala’s economy needs job creation, investment, and innovation. Labour politics that is seen as blocking activity without offering alternative growth pathways struggles to maintain legitimacy. The original promise of unionism was not disruption but dignity. When the tools of dignity become perceived as tools of obstruction, political alignment weakens.
Governance practice again reveals a contradiction. CPI(M)-led administrations frequently speak of ease of doing business, startup ecosystems, and investment promotion. At the same time, they remain tied to a union culture that often resists flexibility, reskilling, and workplace reorganisation. This duality produces mixed signals. Entrepreneurs hear encouragement from policy documents and caution from ground-level realities. Workers hear promises of jobs alongside warnings about exploitation without clear pathways forward.
Globally, labour movements that adapted successfully shifted focus from confrontation to negotiation, from shutdowns to social dialogue, and from job preservation to skill protection. They invested in retraining, portable benefits, and sector-wide standards rather than firm-level battles. In Kerala, such transitions have been slow and uneven, partly because the symbolic power of classical unionism remains strong within party culture.
The deeper issue is ideological inertia. Trade unions are not merely organisational tools; they are identity anchors. Letting go of certain methods feels like betraying history. Yet history itself was defined by adaptation to material conditions. The same pragmatism that once dismantled feudal labour relations is now required to address a post-industrial, mobile, and aspirational workforce.
Kerala’s workers today are not asking only for protection from exploitation. They are asking for access to opportunity, continuity of income, and pathways to mobility. An ideology that speaks primarily in the language of resistance struggles to answer these demands. Without reimagining labour politics beyond strikes and shutdowns, unionism risks becoming a legacy institution rather than a living force.
