Artisan labour in the Agra footwear industry: Continued informality and changing threats

Informal artisanal employment conditions effectively pass on overall instab ility in the Agra footwear industry to the Jatav community. Although in rec ent decades both market channels and the production structure have become m ore complex, Jatav artisans are incorporated in basically two ways. Since t he 1980s, artisans either run or work in home-based units that manufacture cheap footwear fur local upper-caste merchants. or they work as hired labou rers in larger workshops and small-scale factories. Artisanal employment in the 1990s is decreasing because of the increased availability of plastic f ootwear; the collapse of some export markets and the caste-based antagonism between the dominant Punjabi trader-entrepreneurs and Jatav artisans. This has resulted in an increasingly overcrowded home-based sector of last reso rt, and more precarious employment conditions. Only a small group of artisa ns. who are employed in small-scale export-oriented factories run by non-Ag ra entrepreneurs, enjoy relatively better employment conditions.