This paper attempts to articulate and understand the working of the labour relations law framework related to labour organisation and labour dispute processing as it stands structured in the Indian political economy: what does the working of the legal system actually reveal; what institutional processes and what forces exacerbate neutralisation of labour empowerment; who eventually benefits in the exercise; and what concrete manifestations of labour disempowerment processes are visible. The paper is an exercise in sociology of labour law. It is based on data related to sociological reconstruction of some labour organisation cases taken from the actual field setting.