Impact of Economic Reforms on Labour:
It would be of interest to study the industrial relations scenario in the pre-reform and post-reform period. Data provided in table 8.4 reveals that during 1981-90 - the decade before the introduction of economic reforms, a total of 402 million mandays were lost, out of which 216 million (53.8 per cent) were accounted for by strikes and the remaining about 186 million (46.2 per cent) were due to lockouts. However, in the decade following economic reforms i.e. 1991-2000 - the post reform period witnessed a decline in the total number of mandays lost to 230 million, out of which strikes accounted for 92 million (39.8 per cent) and lockouts for 138 million (60.2 per cent). This implies that the proportion of mandays loss due to lockouts was much higher in the post-reform period than in pre-reform period. As a result of the policies of privatisation followed by the state, employers got emboldened and this increased employers' militancy.
Even during the 3-year period (2001-03), the situation further worsened and the proportion of mandays lost due to lockouts went up to 77 per cent as against only 23 per cent due to strikes.