Hi, I am a researcher from India specializing in contract labour issues. As you know, in India since economic liberalization (1991), the organized sector has seen a gradual substitution of direct employment from contractual jobs. A recent study has assessed that in India contract labour account for about 55% of public sector labour employment and 45% of private sector jobs[1]. The numbers may vary but there is no denying the fact that Contract labour or indirect work relation has emerged as the major form of employment in India since economic liberalization.
The numerical count of these contract workers if made, would point towards the engagement of labourers below 18 years of age from adjoing rural areas. In my study at Rudrapur industrial area which is an upcoming industrial area in the Terai region of Uttrakhand bordering Uttar Pradesh (both states in India), I came across hundreds of such workers flocking to their places of work. However the triangular relationship of employment in the contract system prevalent in the region with an abundant supply of labour ensures that these workers are always at their toes and can be hired and fired at will, are cheaper, and are unorganized. Thus I see hopeful workers travel from far flung regions to Rudrapur; find jobs after long parleys; try to settle with their lives initially finding the job very strenuous and low paid; change couple of jobs and find the same everywhere; return back with their hopes shattered with unpaid dues still remaining with the contractors. Most workers in their interviews repeated this same story, only that they were at different stages of the journey.
I guess similar status exists at many other industrial regions of India with rural peripheries. It is only where workers are consious and organized (legally or traditionally) that they have a better voice. In one case I found rural youths with same caste affliations engaged in bargaining process with the employer. But the Indian statutes don't recognize such unofficial bargaining processes. I feel some minor amendments in legal entitlements can bring about drastic change in daily struggles of these rural youth at their workplace.
M. Pankaj Kumar