Asian Labour Review

From Global Factory to Continent of Labour

Daeoup Chang — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Whereas the rise of Asia as the global factory attracts much attention from policy makers and academics, what is often neglected is the ‘labour side’ of the story. What this contemporary transformation means to the ordinary Asian population is that Asia has become a continent of labour where hundreds of millions of workers are making their living at different moments of the globalising circuit of capital. This article examines the historical trajectory of capitalist development and labour in contemporary Asia and, in doing so, tries to identify the ways in which struggles of Asia’s labouring population develop. It demonstrates that the contemporary development of this global factory creates no conditions on the basis of which a ‘traditional industrial working class’ can emerge while making it impossible for people to survive without relating to capitalist labour one way or another. Asian workers’ struggles therefore often do not follow the ‘usual’ model of working class mobilisation. Rather they surface as social movements of the working poor in diverse forms across rural communities, urban centres, workplaces, and homes, defying the trinity formula of the labour movement between the industrial working class, trade unions, and workers political parties.

The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

Sanjiv Pandita — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

The recent establishment of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is widely seen as a major shift in the regional and global economic leadership, with overwhelming support not only from Asian economies but also from major European countries. As an institution that aims to redefine the global economic order, the AIIB poses a significant challenge to the established US, Europe and Japan-led multilateral institutions. It is widely seen as part of China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ policy aimed at building
infrastructure along the ‘silk road’ under the leadership of Chinese economic might. This paper argues, though, that while traditional economic powers feel challenged by the AIIB, the new bank is, in actuality, based on similar ‘neo- liberal’ paradigms followed by other multilateral financial institutions like the World Bank, IMF, or the ADB, which will ultimately lead to the further marginalisation and dispossession of Asian communities. This paper attempts to highlight the labour and environmental concerns that the AIIB brings with it, and argues that the new institution does not posit any change or improvement in the conditions of working people in the region. It analyses what the AIIB entails for workers and communities in Asia, and its possible impacts on the environment. It also highlights some of the initial responses and concerns from the civil society against this financial body.

Informality and Precarious Work in Production Chain Capitalism

Surendra Pratap, Annavajhula J.C. Bose — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

In production chain capitalism, informality and precarious work are systematically created in and built into the value chains to reduce the cost of production and maximize profits. Using a case study on the automobile industry in India, this paper shows that fluctuations in workforce generally occur more at the lower ends of the value chain, artificially created by buyers at the higher end of the value chains as part of a strategy to minimise the bargaining power of suppliers and put downward pressure on the prices of parts. Therefore, engaging contract workers is part of a bigger strategy of profit maximization that exploits cheap labour not to meet the needs of flexibility. The value chain dynamic itself also creates informality of small enterprises at the lower ends of the value chain, which blocks any upward mobility of these enterprises. Thus, the presence of effective trade union movement at the firm level, in the case of larger firms, and at the industry level, in the case of small enterprises, emerge as the most important factors that can potentially minimise the pains of informality and precarious work.

Indonesian Labour Movement in Historical Perspective

Iqra Anugrah — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Book review

Christiansen, Samantha and Zachary A. Scarlett (eds) (2013).The Third World in the Global 1960s. New York, Oxford: Berghahn Books, 223 pages.

Ingleson, John (2014). Workers, Unions and Politics: Indonesia in the 1920s and 1930s. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 352 pages.

Suryomenggolo, Jafar (2013). Organising under the Revolution: Unions and the State in Java, 1945-1948. Singapore, Kyoto: NUS Press and Kyoto University Press, 215 pages.

CSR as the New Age Corporate Practice

Subir Rana — Thu, 01 Jan 2015 00:00:00 +0000

Book review

Asia Monitor Resource Centre (ed) (2012). The Reality of Corporate Social Responsibility: Case Studies on the Impact of CSR on Workers in China, South Korea, India and Indonesia. Hong Kong: Asia Monitor Resource Centre. ISBN: 978 962 7145 40 0.