An assessment of the Maruti Suzuki Employees Union’s struggles against the Suzuki management in Manesar (Gurgaon) reveals that like central trade unions, plant unions also tend to reproduce a form of bureaucratic functioning. This results in a split between leaders and the rank and file – a tendency which often leads to the betrayal of the interests of the struggling workers. This propensity of isolation of the rank and file in workers’ struggles is a product of the complex process whereby the trade union form of politics has been integrated within the legal apparatus of the bourgeoisie-friendly state.