Template talk:Trade unions in India

Comment

Hi @Zarasophos: good idea to create this. A couple of comments to consider. As I'm sure you're aware, trade unionism in India is very complex and often defies standardisation. To me, this navbox tries to do too many things and organises information in ways which makes some things appear far more important than than they are. So for example, I think placing the WFTU and the ITUC as the largest, most prominent organising point is misleading in the Indian context simply because the relationship between the internationals and the federations is quite loose (with the exception of CITU and the WFTU). Yes, they are interested, participate in meetings with the internationals (happily accept funding), but the internationals have no power of sanction, if you will. Whereas the central unions have significant power over their affiliated federations. The layout elides what are quite different trade union structures, centrals with federations ... and more or less hides the largest trade union: BMS. I think it would be much better to break this into different nav boxes. One navbox covering the 12 legally recognised Central Trade Union Organisations (something simple like Template:Trade union confederations in France) and beneath that those organisations which claim a national orientation (eg NTUI etc). I think then you could create an individual nav box for each central trade union where there are a number of identified affiliated organisations. A lessor, but not unimportant issue, the layout creates a great deal of white space. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 12:51, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Hello @Goldsztajn:, thank you for your comments! First I have to say that I am not as knowledgable on Indian trade union matters as you probably are, I only organised the existing articles in a way that seemed to make sense to me. If you have a useful overview over the subject matter, please feel free to link it. As for your other comments, my main opposition to breaking the navbox up into individual ones for the national centres is that while a large box is unstructured and leaves a lot of whitespace, it also gives an overview over just how large the trade union structures in India are. With one large navbox, readers can locate the position of each small union within this larger framework. This would be lost if we broke it up into individual ones. I would suggest instead rearranging the navbox with focus on the 12 national organisations, leaving out the internationals. This would also solve the problem with BMS being so buried. (On it being the largest, this article gives unconfirmed 2013 numbers of 33 million for INTUC and 17 million for BMS. Is that incorrect?) Would you agree to give that a try? Zarasophos (talk) 14:15, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Zarasophos: I've made a first attempt at cleaning up the page, let me know what you think. Personally, I don't think this table should include every single union which has a wikipedia entry - there are actually around 16,000 registered trade unions in India, there has to be a reason for inclusion into a table like this...otherwise it will simply balloon out of all proportion. For example, I see federations with a national orientation like NTUI or the INTTUC as very different from the a small professional association like the Screenwriters Association. To me, this nav box should be for the confederations, that is the Central TUs and the independent confederations. One thought might be to have nav boxes by sector, so screenwriters could appear on, for example, an Arts, Entertainment and Recreation Trade unions in India nav box, along with the other film-industry unions and the FPAI, for example. Regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 21:58, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

@Goldsztajn: Thank you for the improvement, that is exactly the direction I was thinking. I've simplified it one step further, since Central Trade Union Organizations are explained in the Trade unions in India article that is already linked in the navbox. As for your point with 16,000 trade unions in India, I agree that would be too many for one navbox - however, we don't have 16,000 trade union articles yet, and I think this navbox is not overly large yet. Once we have a few trade unions for every CTUO, I would agree with splitting this one up. For now, I would actually suggest going through all the articles we have at the moment and PRODing the not noteworthy ones. I know a few definitely seemed that way to me when I went through them to add the navbox. Zarasophos (talk) 22:31, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Hi @Zarasophos: - I don't agree with removing the CTUOs column; that's an important legal distinction in India, which carries institutional authority and the 12 CTUOs are grouped together for specific purposes (ie membership in the Indian Labour Conference), Indian media also frequently reports about the joint actions of the CTUOs. Also, by removing that category, it makes unions not in the Independent row seem ... well, not independent (which is certainly not the case for SEWA, which is very much independent). FWIW - the average size of an Indian trade union is around 2,000 members - to me that's notable (especially given the thresholds for settlements in Wikipedia where a village with 50 people is considered notable). Wikipedia has enormous problems with systemic bias regarding coverage of the non-Anglosphere world, let alone the global south ... I'm in no rush to prod articles on South Asian trade unions unless there is evidence of a hoax or fraud (which would be speedy deletion anyway). Kind regards, --Goldsztajn (talk) 10:23, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

@Goldsztajn: Thanks for the feedback. I removed the CTUO column because all the federations listed were CTUO members anyway, so it didn't add any additional information. I agree that it is an important part of these organisations, but that can easily be seen in their respective articles. I do agree with the "Independent" thing though, which is why I would change it to "Non-Affiliated". As for the PRODing proposal, I take that back since I obviously agree with all of your points. --Zarasophos (talk) 13:03, 2 February 2022 (UTC)