Theories of industrial and regional development have been enhanced significantly by the parallel traditions of Global Value Chains (GVCs) and Global Production Networks (GPNs). Research has drawn attention to the indispensable role of human labour in the interactions between development and cross-border flows. More recently, the concept of the labour regime has been revived, and revised, to understand these interactions more fully. This chapter argues that the labour regime provides a valuable means for understanding social and institutional mechanisms which connect labour markets, firms and GVCs. Defining the labour regime as a system for governing the mobilisation and management of people whose labour power is necessary for commodity production, it shows how this concept can help to explain the employment of particular people in particular places at particular times. As a structure of power relations which is reducible to neither the firm, the industry nor the labour market, the labour regime offers a way to better address the who, where, when, how and why of labour practices in firms, labour markets, households and communities. The chapter illustrates the case for labour regime analysis by drawing evidence from the study of automotive manufacturing in key regions of India, where two overlapping labour regimes have evolved in the last two decades. It demonstrates labour regime theory’s ability to reconcile seemingly contradictory tendencies: on the one hand, the transformative influence of rapid industrial development in different countries; on the other, the potentially destabilising influence of conflict within and between firms, states and workers’ communities.