Old Classes and New Spaces: Urban Poverty, Unorganised Labour and New UnionsEconomic and Political Weekly

Critical perspectives on globalisation acknowledge the need for mitigating the inegalitarian impact of marketisation upon disadvantaged sections on social security and welfare measures. However, scant attention has been paid to the fact that today the political leverage of the traditional protagonists of welfare - the welfare state, social-democratic parties and trade unions - has been eroded. As such, the discourse on welfare and social security is unanchored in any kind of politics. This paper looks at the activities of the National Centre for Labour. Its relationship to traditional trade unions and leftist parties frames the discussion of the limits of the effectiveness of new unions in empowering the poor.