What has been the impact of China’s accession to the WTO in 2001? Most discussions have focused on the positive impacts from a business perspective.
What has been the impact of China’s accession to the WTO in 2001? Most discussions have focused on the positive impacts from a business perspective. Yet in the period of 1996-2002, a total of 40 million workers were sacked because of restructuring and privatization, and probably 10 million of them were directly related to China’s accession to WTO. This book contains a selection of thirteen in-depth interviews with rank-and-file workers from the service and manufacturing sector in Beijing, Qingdao, Shanghai, Suzhou and Guangzhou in China. Through this book, workers give their own comments on the accession and what it will mean for the country, their enterprises and industry, and themselves. It record the hopes, fears and aspirations of the Chinese working class in the context of China’s deeper integration into the globalization web. This publication is in Chinese, the English language version is to be published later in 2008.
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?
Editor: Asia Monitor Resource Centre mainly publishes labour-related publications in English. However in the interest of a truly Asian labour movement we endeavour to publish Asian language works as well as translate important publications from English into Asian languages. Below are two new publications in Chinese.
Killing the Future: Asbestos use in China - Chinese version
This book is a translated version of the original English report published in July 2007, authored by Laurie Kazan-Allen from International Ban Asbestos Secretariat in collaboration with 15 other organizations from Asia and other parts of world.
The report details the alarming level of asbestos consumption in Asia which is in stark contrast to the complete ban or bare minimal asbestos consumption in many industrialized countries.
The book also reveals that the asbestos ban and reduced consumption in the west meant that manufacturers started to search for new markets and Asia has emerged as the single largest market with China and India being the largest consumers.
The high consumption in Asia is also related to the fact that it is heavily promoted in Asia, especially by the Canadian Chrysotile Institute. Canada is one of the largest producers of asbestos and exports most of it to Asia.
China is both one of the largest consumers and largest producers of asbestos.
This book contains information about the hazards of asbestos and steps being taken in different Asian countries to ban its use. We sincerely hope that this book can make a contribution towards the movement to ban asbestos in China.
Edited by May Wong ( Chinese version )
What has been the impact of China’s accession to the WTO in 2001? Most discussions have focused on the positive impacts from a business perspective. Yet in the period of 1996-2002, a total of 40 million workers were sacked because of restructuring and privatization, and probably 10 million of them were directly related to China’s accession to WTO. This book contains a selection of thirteen in-depth interviews with rank-and-file workers from the service and manufacturing sector in Beijing, Qingdao, Shanghai, Suzhou and Guangzhou in China. Through this book, workers give their own comments on the accession and what it will mean for the country, their enterprises and industry, and themselves. It record the hopes, fears and aspirations of the Chinese working class in the context of China’s deeper integration into the globalization web. This publication is in Chinese, the English language version is to be published later in 2008.
(English) 2006, 344pp
This new 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.
(Chinese) 2005, 99 pp
This book seeks to understand the nature of corporate codes of conduct and utilise them in improving working conditions of millions of workers in Asia. The introductory chapters introduce us to the basic concepts surrounding codes of conduct, bringing together information on existing codes of conduct as well as a brief history of their development.
(English) 2005, 371 pp
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.
(English) 2005, 10pp and 40 pp
These two booklets highlight the proceedings of the conference that took place in August 2004. The Conference was hosted by AMRC, HKCIC and DAGA.
(English, 2004, 122pp)
The articles chosen to be included in this book were previously presented in a workshop on the automobile industry in Delhi, November 2003, organised by Asia Resource Monitor Centre and Centre for Education and Communication. The workshop aimed to identify 1) challenges to workers in globalising Asia’s auto industry and 2) the basis of new solidarity between workers in different countries however under the same management of globalising Asian TNCs. The contributions included in this book shows investment trend, corporate restructuring and new employment strategies of Asia-originated car manufacturers. It also explores union strategies and roles of NGOs against the restructuring in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India, China, Philippines, and other ASEAN countries.
(English, 2003, 336pp)
Remembered as the founding father of the Korean independent trade union movement, Chun Tae-il immolated himself dramatically at the age of 22 years old in November 1970. He was shouting “Follow the Labour Standards Law”, “We are not machines” when his body was on fire in a protest against the Labour Law not able to protect Korean workers. Until today, many Korean labour activists keep telling me that his death inspired their commitment to the labour movement, especially the young students and intellectuals who disguised themselves working and organising workers at the shop floor level in the formative days of the independent labour movement in the early 70s.
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