This article summarizes findings obtained through ethnographic research conducted in three states in India between 2002 and 2004. On the basis of interviews with more than three hundred labor leaders, government officials, and working women, the author reports on the efforts of informal workers in construction and tobacco manufacturing to organize and improve their conditions of life. Contrary to mobilizations in the formal sector, those workers do not make direct demands on their employers. Instead they appeal to the state to obtain welfare benefits. The study shows that neoliberal reform has surprisingly opened up new channels for informal workers to constitute themselves as a class. This represents an amendment to earlier analyses that focused exclusively on the mobilizing capacity of workers in the formal sector. The author concludes by highlighting the importance of this work for the study of social movements and labor's relationship with the state.
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