In the past 15 years, insecure employment relations as well as militant labor unrest have marked the Indian automobile sector. Through a case study of four final assembly automobile firms, from three regions in India, this article examines the mechanisms by which state interventions have shaped the rise of precarious work in the sector and its consequential implications for labor organizing. Drawing on firm level economic data and interviews with key stakeholders, this article argues that state interventions play a key role in disciplining and reconstituting the Indian automobile worker. The regional comparison of state interventions in the automobile sector helps to identify spaces for strengthening labor organizing around precarious work and the rights of the citizen-worker.
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