As the NDA government leans towards industrialists by scripting reforms that would legalise and expand contract labour, the big question is: do India’s trade unions have it in them to resist this imminent legislative blitz?...Ask any top executive from India Inc. and he would tell you that India has a labour problem. And the International Labour Organisation (ILO) would agree...There are eight core ILO Conventions against forced labour (also known, in less euphemistic times, as slavery). India refuses to ratify four of those...The Annual Global Rights Index, published by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), rates 141 countries on 97 indicators derived from ILO standards. In 2015, India had a rating of 5, the second-worst category. It denotes “no guarantee of rights”...93 per cent of India’s workforce anyway do not enjoy the protection of India’s 144 labour laws.