Moreover, with the decline of the factory-based industrial working class and the emergence of an economy where 90% of the total workforce is highly unorganized and informal, or even spatially dispersed, or if the choke points of production relations are opaque, the city itself could become the site of resistance. Migrant labour is critical infrastructure that sustains the city. They make the city productive, not only sustaining it but also reproducing its social and economic fabric. They help “position residents, territories, and resources in specific configurations, where the energies of individuals can be most efficiently deployed and accounted for, driving the city’s growth and functioning” (Simone, 2004). Any breakdown in this labour force is unaffordable to urban economies. Therefore, traditional unions should attend to the lower-class migrant labour force, by considering the city as the choke point, where production and consumption flows are structured.
Also, in the cityscape of Bengaluru, shaped by neoliberal imaginaries and the accommodation of labour from a diversity of cultural contexts to meet the needs of capital, these labour flows often intersect with cultural conflicts, such as “son of the soil” debates, over who gets to work or live in the city. Migrant workers, particularly Muslim minorities as in our case, are highly vulnerable targets, facing heightened oppression from far-right politics. Organizing lower-class migrant workers’ in such scenarios also opens up new frontiers of political resistance, demonstrating the interconnectedness of struggles against Hindutva in multiple provinces, as seen in our case. Therefore, organising efforts must address the subjective vulnerabilities and insecurities of migrant labour, considering cleavages such as ethnicity, caste and religion as well.
Bengali Tech workers’ supported organising efforts such as IMFK and AIGWU signify a creative exploration of engaging with migrant labourers’ social and cultural subject position alongside their objective condition of labour. Therefore, the composite nature of labour, which embodies a heterogeneity of social, political, cultural and economic contradictions, needs not be seen as something to be absolved into a singular class framing. Instead, organising efforts could engage with and navigate these contradictions, shaped by cleavages such as ethnicity, caste and religion, opening up lateral avenues of solidarity and action that reflect the complexity of workers’ lived experiences. Therefore, the engagement of
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