However, ifwe zoom into the Indian scenario, particularly after neoliberal economic reforms from the mid-1980s, unions are faced with the struggle to organize new regimes of work. Many have argued that traditional trade unions need to focus on emerging industries such as the IT and Business process outsourcing (BPO) sector, their success in organizing these sectors has been limited (Sundar, 2006). Even in the early 2000s, IT employees in Indian cities like Bangalore formed groups like the IT Professionals Forum but largely distanced themselves from unions. This was due to factors such as a desire to distinguish themselves from blue-collar workers, coupled with many employees’ direct access to higher-ups and efficient communication systems (Sundar, 2006). Nonetheless, trade unions also have struggled to organize lower-class migrant workers, predominant in the informal sector. Scholars have examined the internal dynamics of traditional trade unions to understand their lack of inclusivity towards the migrant labour force. They have highlighted factors such as challenges in aggregating workers’ interests, where unions carried assumptions ofworker homogeneity (Menon, 2020; Sundar, 2007, 2019). Furthermore, the dominance of local majorities within unions in respective provinces has further marginalized migrant workers (Sundar, 2007). Furthermore, particularly in the case of lowerclass migrant labour, their distinct spatio-temporalities, such as mobility and temporary residency, is also identified as hindering unionization efforts (Rogaly, 2001). Evidently, the traditional strength of trade unions, rooted in their ability to engage in bipartite or tripartite wage bargaining between labour, employers, and the state—particularly when employers violated workers’ rights enshrined in laws and procedural norms—has eroded, as such clear agreements are largely absent in the informal sector. With the rise of digital labour platforms, where weak state regulations, labour misclassification (e.g. “partner”/independent contractor) and opaque algorithmic management defined the work atmosphere, unions are encountering similar challenges in advocating for workers’ rights and representation. Nonetheless, recent studies indicate that trade unions have diversified their strategies, shifting from a class-based, universalistic approach to incorporating a more particularistic approach that acknowledges the ethnic, linguistic, and cultural differences of migrant workers (Kulkarni & Datta, 2024). With this shift, unions also started extending support beyond the workplace, addressing issues in workers’ broader social environments (Ibid). However, existing literature lacks an examination of how unions concretely address these ethnic, linguistic, and cultural differences. Similarly, there is also evidence of traditional trade unions’ organizing attempts among IT workers and digital labour platform workers (Thuppilikkat et al., 2024; Thuppilikkat et al., 2025). In this context, we explore a scenario where a traditional trade union in India organized both lower-class migrant workers and workers on digital labour platforms, with tech workers playing a crucial role. We examine how the union framed strategies that went beyond class universalism, incorporating the unique needs and identities of these diverse worker groups.
9 TRANSVERSAL UNIONISM: RESISTING AND NAVIGATING
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