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Artisan labour in the Agra footwear industry: Continued informality and changing threats

Institute of Social Studies, P.O. Box 29776, 2502 LT, The Hague, The Netherlands

Informal artisanal employment conditions effectively pass on overall instability in the Agra footwear industry to the Jatav community. Although in recent decades both mar ket channels and the production structure have become more complex, Jatav artisans are incorporated in basically two ways. Since the 1980s, artisans either run or work in home-based units that manufacture cheap footwear for local upper-caste merchants, or they work as hired labourers in larger workshops and small-scale factories. Arti sanal employment in the 1990s is decreasing because of the increased availability of plastic footwear, the collapse of some export markets and the caste-based antagonism between the dominant Punjabi trader-entrepreneurs and Jatav artisans. This has resulted in an increasingly overcrowded home-based sector of last resort, and more precarious employment conditions. Only a small group of artisans, who are employed in small-scale export-oriented factories run by non-Agra entrepreneurs, enjoy relatively better employment conditions.

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