As Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been practiced in many different ways, this book tries to present Asian context by investigating how CSR activities has been impacting people on the ground. The book provides case studies from China, South Korea, India and Indonesia, disclosing the ugly face of CSR. The biggest problem with CSR is not that it has limitations, nor is it concerning its questionable ability to sufficiently address the problems it intends to ameliorate. Rather, it is the fact that it takes people to a completely wrong direction. For many large corporations, CSR is primarily a strategy to divert attention away from the negative social and environmental impacts of their activities. In the Asian context, CSR mostly involves activities like adopting villages for what they call a ‘holistic development’, in which they provide medical and sanitation facilities, build school and houses, and helping villagers become self-reliant by teaching them vocational and business skills. Such corporate strategies have been effectively hegemonic, providing a strong legitimacy and license for corporations to sustain the exploitation of human and natural resources. More importantly, it leads people to wrongly assume that the business houses, and not the states, are responsible for citizens' basic rights to better education, clean water, healthcare, etc. It disciplines the un-informed poor motivating them to behave in ways that make state regulation obsolete, while leaving them at the mercy of market forces.
The book provides an analysis that capital mobility has become major and underlying factor of the precarity of workers in Asia. The chapters - case studies on Japan, China, Philippines and Thailand - illustrate that workers’ collective bargaining power has declined which can be seen in the intensification of irregularisation, union busting actions, company closures, and massive dismissal of workers reported across the region. In many cases, this condition has resulted in the weakening of militancy of workers in countries that used to be dynamic actors in the labour rights movement.
Capital mobility which has been intensified by the process of financialisation has brought about greater loss of workers’ control over capital. In fact, not all foreign capital will exit countries that restrict them with regulation. Risk of capital flight does not apply equally to all corporations. In many industries, including the automotive which is the major focus of this book, production requires significant initial investment in dedicated capital equipment, and relocation is very costly and time consuming, therefore it would not be undertaken lightly. Nonetheless, the collusion of state and capital in the undermining of the legal mechanisms protecting the working people is obvious. The efforts to democratically regulate capital have always been impeded by the state and capital collusion for the sake of capital accumulation.
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This book is more than a review of labour law, it is the only comprehensive review available of labour law in the Asia Pacific region. It investigates the impact of labour law on workers in 30 countries. It analyses trade union and labour activists’ responses to changes in labour law, and examines what labour law means for workers’ daily lives. Each chapter representing a country can be downloaded country wise for download below.
Cover of the Asia Pacific Labour Law Review
Intoduction and Table of contents
To Download chapters on individual countries:
AMRC hosted the Asian Asbestos Conference in Hong Kong along with the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS), Ban Asbestos Japan (BANJAN) , Building and Woodworkers International (BWI), International Metalworkers Federation (IMF), Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) and others. This publication reflects the discussion and sharing during this conference with the formation of the Asian Ban Asbestos Network (A-BAN).
Asia has long needed a coordinated approach to the problem of widespread asbestos use. While some countries in the region, such as Japan and Korea, have already instituted asbestos bans, others continue to manufacture and use asbestos products; in particular, India and China remain heavy users.
The Silicosis comics was created with the intention of providing an easy tool for education and sharing information about this work related disease and its deadly effects. The story board was created by Meldody Kemp, who is a long standing member of the ANROEV network and the illustrations were done by an artist in Laoscalled Philom Somsouthi. These comics came to life by the joint effort of members of the ANROEV network including AMRC. It has since been translated into Chinese, Hindi, Gujarathi and will be translated into a few more languages in the region. The story has 3 sections and all parts will be uploaded for viewing.
This publication was jointly produced by AMRC and the ANROAV Network in 2005 looking at the workers' compensation system in the Asia Pacific region.
The Asia Pacific region is diverse and OSH compensation systems vary from place to place. Yet there is a stark similarity in the manner workers face difficulties and are unable to access these systems. On paper most of the countries have framed laws that lay down procedures and rights for workers to claim compensation. There are some exceptions like Cambodia (which unfortunately is not covered in this volume) where the law in itself is totally inadequate and ambiguous without clear procedures for workers to follow.
At this juncture one may even look into the historical evolution of compensation systems. In basic terms we can say that they evolved over the years as a direct struggle of labour against the forces of capital with intervention from the state. Overall the laws on compensation can be classified into two main groups; one is the employers’ liability system where a worker can sue the employer for injuries and diseases; the other is the no-fault compensation system which is more like workers’ insurance and run by either state or private insurance companies. To read more, please download the whole publication...
This publication was produced by AMRC in 1985 and has been a valuable resource for those working on OSH and labour rights issues in the electronics industry for the past two decades.
This publication was produced by AMRC in 1985 and has been a valuable resource for those working on OSH and labour rights issues in the electronics industry for the past two decades. AMRC will update this resource book in the coming year with updated information on hazards and more on the changes of the industry in Asia- mapping its growth and labour trends and practices. This book serves as an ideal starting point for workers, unions and those working on labour and health issues in the electronics industry..
AMRC with support from Committee for Asian Women and Homenet Southeast Asia
The ‘informal’ workers constitute the overwhelming majority of Asia, as much as 2/3 of the labor force. Among those, a majority is composed of women.
Informal workers predominate in the large informal economy of Asia, which comprise of a galaxy of ‘unregistered’ and usually ‘unregulated’ economic activities taking place in agriculture, industry and in the rapidly-growing service sector. Workers in the vast informal economy include seasonal agricultural workers, home-based producers, ambulant peddlers, unregistered migrants, etc.
Formal sector employment also keeps shrinking in both developing and developed Asian countries because of the ‘labor informalization’ process taking place in the sector. The ‘regular’ or ‘standard’ employees are now outnumbered by the ‘irregular’ or ‘non-standard’ agency, temporary/casual, part-time, migrant and subcontracted workers.
Who are Asia’s informal labourers? What are their rights under national laws – or what are the rights they have been deprived of? Can the system of social security be extended to them? Can the ‘race to the bottom’ that is driving the informalization process be stopped? What can labor advocates and governments do to protect the dignity of informal workers– be they in the ever-growing informal economy or in the shrinking formal sector?
The labour law review is now avaliable for download both chapter wise as listed below and also the whole book in a single file.
This volume from the ATNC series of AMRC examines how ‘work’ is being recomposed by mobile capital in Asia.
This volume from the ATNC series of AMRC examines how ‘work’ is being recomposed by mobile capital in Asia. It traces the interaction between multinational companies and local labour, drawing on the examples of the evolution of emerging multinational giant Samsung Electronics, the world’s most profitable automaker Toyota, and the survival strategies of the Taiwanese national brand Tatung. We are shown how the world of labour and living has changed for workers as a result of these multinational companies’ operation and expansion of capital in Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, India, and China.
| Whole book download.pdf | |
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| Labour in Globalising Asian Corps - Chap 1-2.pdf | |
| Labour in Globalising Asian Corps - Chap 3-5.pdf | |
| Labour in Globalising Asian Corps - Chap 8.pdf | |
| Labour in Globalising Asian Corps - Chap 9-10.pdf |
This book provides a general picture of capital movement from Asia and thereby illuminating the importance of monitoring ATNCs. It includes achievements of the ATNC network researchers over the past two years. It highlights the impact of Asian investment on labour in different countries thereby providing an understanding of the restructuring of labour and the 'race to the bottom' of labour conditions as an aspect of a particular form of the globalisation of capital.
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