This book studies workers in four factories in Bangalore - an industrial
city of more than one and a half million people in South India - and
seeks to answer questions about the situation and thinking of workers in
modern capital intensive factories. It is based on case studies of
Bangalore workers and their families, on statistical material from
management files on workers and from other sources, and on interviews
with managers and union officials. Among the principal questions
considered are: who are the factory workers and what are their origins,
career prospects and living conditions? Are they a privileged elite in a
dual economy and what relations are there between them and people
outside steady factory employment? How do the workers see their own
situation, as individuals and as a class? And how do they think of a
'job' as part of a 'career' and a career as part of their lifetime, in
relation to other things that matter to them?