This report is part of a study of labour regimes and labour conditions in two major industries: garments and construction, in India and China. Both these industries are major employers in the two countries, with distinct characteristics. Garments are traded goods and the garment industry is situated in national and global value chains. The location of garment production in global production networks and the nature of global competition are major factors influencing labour standards in different segments of the garment value chain. In comparison, construction is a nontraded good, and is subject to a different logic of production and competition. Both production and labour in both industries are subject to substantial sub-contracting, but in the case of construction, most of this sub-contracting is on-site. This study focuses on labour regimes and labour standards in the construction industry in India and is based on based on fieldwork in the Delhi National Capital Region (NCR). The construction industry in India employs the largest number of workers outside agriculture, most of whom are paid workers. In 2011-12, the industry employed 49.9 million workers of whom 44.5 million (89.2 %) were paid workers. By contrast, in the same year, in the garment industry, 71.7 percent of its 9.4 million workers were self-employed in an independent capacity or home workers. Construction takes place as small-scale activity as well as large-scale activity undertaken by organised sector firms in the private or public sector. This study focuses on labour standards and capital-labour relations in large-scale construction activity carried out by first tier organised sector firms, and lower tier sub-contracted formal and informal firms. This report is structured as follows: The changing contours of the construction industry is described in Sections 2 to 4. Sections 5 and 6 describe the fieldwork areas and the survey methodology. The field results are discussed in Section 7 onwards of the report.
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