Trade union research agendas in a globalising Asia

Rene Ofreneo, Melisa Serrano and Stephen Frost

Trade unions across Asia are in decline. Membership numbers have plunged and as a result unions are no longer able to effectively defend workers’ rights. The ability of workers to bargain collectively and negotiate with management over conditions of work and pay have been steadily eroded. Throughout the region there is weak enforcement of labour laws, and in some cases complete disregard. Labour standards are under threat and unions have had little success in preventing the roll-back of regulations. There are of course bright spots throughout the region where union numbers have grown and battles have been fought and won. However, in the face of changing systems of production, management, communication, and transport, unions have by and large found themselves limited in the level and extent of organising workers.

   The immediate causes underlying trade union fragility can be summarised as follows:

• an increase in non-standard (informal) forms of employment, such as workers who are now casual, contractual, dispatched (employed indirectly via agencies), outsourced, part-time, seasonal, and project-based;
• endless re-engineering and downsizing of enterprises;
• the break up, mergers and acquisitions, and consolidation of enterprises;
• the roll-back and subversion of trade union rights;
• privatisation
• employer opposition to trade unions;
• disorganised, unfocused, and sometimes undemocratic unions.

   Some of the deeper causes accounting for the weakening of the trade union movement are:

• increasing joblessness in countries registering economic growth;
• massive unemployment in countries with more ‘loser’ industries than ‘winners’;
• jobs for the employed are now subjected to increasing global competition and thus pit workers against each other (with two consequences);
• the race to the bottom and/or lowering of labour standards;
• TNCs are able to manipulate subcontracting, supply chains and production networks as they expand globally;
• the impact of information technology;
• the trade union movement unprepared to organise atypical and non-traditional workers;
• bargaining at various levels or layers of the supply chain; and
• influencing the legislative agenda for labour and industry.

   Given this brief and gloomy assessment we believe that there needs to be a whole new agenda for research into trade unions in Asia. This research should be conducted in consultation with trade unions where possible, and provide examples and models that can be copied or provide lessons. There is little usable work in each of the 12 areas below, and our call is for all activists, scholars, researchers, and writers committed to trade unions and their role in Asia to consider these broad areas as the foundations for future possible projects. Trade union leaders and members require well written, short accounts on all of these areas. Research can play an important role in developing strategies, but only if it can be used effectively and engages with issues currently concerning unions. The major gaps across the region are as follows.

1. The preservation and creation of stable jobs.
2. The impact of the WTO, AFTA, and APEC on regional, sub-regional, and national levels. There is a need here to integrate macro- and micro-level findings.
3. Labour monitoring in priority sectors, industries, and countries. It is important to document successful trade union initiatives.
4. Making social dialogue effective at the national and international level. It is essential to document and disseminate successful social dialogue initiatives in ways easily accessible to workers.
5. Genuine examples of workers’ participation in co-management strategies.
6. Union structural arrangements, such as centralisation versus decentralisation, and the outcomes of union activities and their effectiveness.
7. New forms of organising, particularly non-traditional employees, women, youth workers, professional, and management staff.
8. Union adaptations in collective bargaining, and new forms of bargaining.Enterprise bargaining versus industry bargaining. Interest-based, problem-solving based bargaining.New forms of welfare promotion.
9. The expansion of social security to cover the unemployed, suddenly unemployed, and atypical workers. Important here are examples of workers’ control of social security or pension systems.
10. The emergence of a ‘new form of unionism’; that is, community-based unionism, and social-movement unionism representing social needs and interests beyond the employment relationship.
11. Search for alternative economic models that move beyond the so-called Washington Consensus.² There may be a possibility for global rules with social dimensions.
12. Forms of solidarity that move beyond the failed ‘solidarity-building’ initiatives that have preoccupied activists for the last decade.

   We think that researchers and trade unions should – if conditions allow – determine urgent research priorities together. It is important that workers’ voices be heard, and that quality research underpins trade union strategies that reflect workers’ interests and aspirations. That there is almost no research conducted in any of the above areas relevant to the Asia-Pacific suggests also that there is almost no engagement between researchers and trade unions.

   Information is crucial for trade unions to develop responses and strategies. Research that provides clear analysis of trends that impact on workers’ lives can play an important role in that process. Without solid research, trade unions – which often have limited capacity to carry out extensive research – may be unable to form a clear overview of what is happening around them. Likewise, research about workers lives that is not linked to the concerns of organisations representing them, runs the risk of making no difference in people’s lives.

By Rene Ofreneo, Melisa Serrano,³ and Stephen Frost.⁴

Notes

1 This is a summary of a paper presented at the fourth Asian Regional Congress of the International Industrial Relations Association, Manila, 20-22 November 2001.

2 The Washington Consensus holds that good economic performance requires liberalised trade, macro-economic stability, and getting prices right. Once the government deals with these issues (that is, once the government ‘gets out of the way’), private markets will allocate resources efficiently and generate strong growth.

3 Melissa and Rene are both from the Center for Labor Justice – School of Labor and Industrial Relations (SOLAIR), University of the Philippines.

4 Asia Monitor Resource Center, Hong Kong.