Women and labour organizing in Asia: diversity, autonomy and activism

Abstract

Women have become the new face of industrial labour – and of labour activism – not only in Korea, in all but the most and least developed countries of Asia. Export-oriented industrialization strategies favoured throughout East and Southeast Asia, and more recently in parts of the sub-continent, brought with them a feminization first of factory labour and then of the diverse agglomeration of contract and home workers that now produce consumer goods for the world. The rapidly increasing economic importance of the Asian region in the global context highlights the need for detailed analysis of the institutions and practices which constitute civil society in Asia. Globalization, with its opening up of Asia’s economies, and the concomitant growth of feminized labour-intensive industries, has shone a spotlight on male-dominated union organizations in the region and their failure to protect women’s interests. The chapters in this volume explore women’s responses to these unions’ shortcomings. They examine the strategies female labour activists have employed within and outside the organized labour movements in nine very different Asian contexts, the challenges they face, their frustrations, and their successes.