Did converting the Contract Labour mechanism into a cost-benefit tool become a major trigger for IR Crisis? Has excessive dependence on contract labour made organisations vulnerable to losing their overall HR purpose?
GG Yes – and I say this with the conviction of someone who has watched this transformation unfold on the shop floor in real time. Contract labour was originally conceived as an operational instrument: to handle seasonal surges, specialised functions, and non-core activities. Somewhere along the way, finance-driven leadership discovered that it was also a potent tool for cost arbitrage. The logic was clean on paper – lower per-unit labour cost, reduced statutory obligations, flexible headcount. The problem is that industrial relations is never just a spreadsheet exercise.
When organisations began systematically deploying contract workers across what were clearly permanent, core roles, they did not just create a wage disparity- they created a structural contradiction. Management spoke of ‘One Team, One...
