Who is a construction worker? Bureaucratic arbitrariness, entrepreneurial unions and performances of eligibility in Delhi

The everyday politics of negotiations required to register oneself as a construction worker with labour boards remains critical to obtaining the eligible entitlements in Delhi. How is verification carried out and eligibility established? How are mistakes redressed in the workers’ identity cards? How are claims authenticated? The negotiations straddle the complex worlds of labour board office members, entrepreneurial unions (which demand a percentage of commission to support the workers), construction sector contractors and employers, and a variety of brokers and intermediaries. As the bureaucrats of labour boards arbitrarily pronounce themselves as authenticators and the union agents embrace an ethic of usefulness, the workers must systematically perform that they are genuine workers by deploying a wide variety of cultural and bodily tactics to prove their authenticity and claim their entitlements. In so doing, they deploy their speech-acts, comportments, physical attributes and bodily signs as evidence for their claims as worker-citizens.