Recognising that economies in Asia are developing very fast, there is a considerably widening gap in terms of income as indicated by the Gini coefficients per country. For example, in most of the countries including Laos and Vietnam the income gap has been widening while the economy grows. Aside from increasing informalisation of jobs, there are also other indicators indicating that the labor situation has not improved in the last decade. It is true that poverty in Asia is decreasing but relative poverty has been increasing which means that the income gap in society has become more serious. There are more self-employed and own account workers and more women than men in these categories. The situation of women is relatively worse than men in the informal economy because they have no voice and visibility particularly in decision making processes. Aside from increasing precarious work, the marginalised informal workers also suffer from privatisation of public goods. Increasing occupational risks comprise another difficulty faced by informal workers.
In September 2013, AMRC launched our Gender and Labour Rights programme by bringing together representatives from 28 organisations and twelve countries for a regional consultation. Participants were predominantly women activists from AMRC’s partner labour groups, as well as experts and researchers who have been working on labour and gender issues in the region.
Surat Thani is the largest of the southernprovinces of Thailand, on the western shore of the Gulf of Thailand. The province comprises 19 districts, 131 subdistricts, 1,061 villages, 272,001 households and 816,016 people.
The video documented the story of Yi Yeting, an occupational disease patient turned worker activist. It is a story of the unequal battle waged between workers and capital, between individual and the state; yet it is also a story of personal growth and empowerment, of overcoming one’s suffering and gaining collective consciousness.
The Asian Roundtable on Social Protection (AROSP) meeting for Southeast Asian partners happened in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on 27-28 June 2014. It intends to consolidate the AROSP partners’ network in Southeast Asia towards the strengthening of the social protection advocacy in the region. It was attended by 30 participants (14 women and 16 men) representing workers’ organisations in different Southeast Asian countries including Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Since 2011, Myanmar has been one of the main countries to draw international attention. Before that year, international news coverage on the country was mostly related to oppression and political turmoil caused by military dictatorship. However, after 2011, the reasons were quite different. Several political and legal reforms brought by the civilian-led government, although backed by the military group, have made a drastic shift of international climate towards the country.
This map tells the story of Samsung Electronics' Supply Chains and their working condition across Asia. It shows cases of occupational ill and victims in several Asian countries and key issues including labour union busting by Samsung companies and its suppliers and violence towards workers, among others.
This book intends to bring together discussions on the progress and current state of Indonesian labour movement after the collapse of the Suharto's New Order regime in May 1998 that brought up the Reformasi. In the context of state-labour relationship, it allows more rooms for workers to organise and join into unions. However, it has also delivered neo-liberal challenges for workers’ collective efforts to defend their economic interests in the workplace.
This film documented workers' struggles in Bekasi Industrial Zones, West Java, Indonesia, between 2011 and 2013. It describes the forms of workers' resistance including marches, toll road blockade, shutting down the industrial zones, and factory raid. The documentary presents the views and voices from the ground, explains why workers and union leaders resisted against the capital.
Language: Indonesian with English subtitle (to activate the subtitle, please turn on the "captions" button)
This study was conducted by Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) between December 7, 2012to March 2013. Personal interviews, focus group discussion and interview of key respondents through email were used to gather data. Twelve worker-leaders from Agusan Plantation Inc. (API), Agumil (API Milling Plant), and Filipinas Palm Oil Plantation Inc. (FPPI) participated in the focus group discussions while five key informants were interviewed: three were conducted in person and two were done through emails.