This book offers wide-ranging insights into the organising capacities of workers in Asia today. Nine case-studies examine workers' responses to class relations through independent unions, non-government organisations (NGOs) and more (dis)organised struggles. Countering the notion that globalisation holds entirely negative consequences for labour organisation, the authors reveal some of the openings for local activism which can arise from transnational production arrangements. The volume covers the "second-tier" industrializers - China, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, India and Bangladesh. Interdisciplinary in nature, it will be of great interest to students and scholars of Asian studies, development studies and international labour studies.

Providing a full account of the role of women in union activism in Asia, covering all the major economies of the region, this book successfully challenges the prevailing conception of women workers in Asia as passive and uninterested in industrial issues.

This collection contributes to key theoretical debates about women workers in Asia and breaks new ground by focussing on issues that have been little documented in other studies in the area. It provides new information and insights into labour systems associated with labour intensive export manufactures and state-labour relations in a comparative context. The contributors present a range of unique and varied perspectives from which they consider aspects of the increasing integration of Asian economies, exploring implications for their labour markets.

This well-researched book examines the dramatic transformation of Southeast Asian countries from agricultural and mining economies to industrial nations. In doing so, it explores the effects of development policy on a number of interdisciplinary issues, and the emergence of new social and political pressures created by industrialization. These include their heightened vulnerability to complex economic crises, their use of sophisticated instruments in the labour process and increased awareness of environmental issues. The distinguished authors present a regional and cross-border focus on transnational actors and institutions, and the policy issues and problems which have a wider impact on spatial configurations in the region. This insightful study will appeal to researchers, academics and policymakers working on the economics and development of Southeast Asia.

Reassessing the Employment Relationship is an edited volume written by leading academics at Cardiff Business School. Reflecting on the employment relationship as one of the central institutions of advanced capitalist economies, it provides an extensive survey of the changing world of work. The book offers a multi-disciplinary analysis of the contemporary workplace, and focuses on the key influences that are shaping the employment relationship - globalization, financialization, regulation and the search for ethical standards in human resource management. There is insightful and authoritative treatment of some of the main developments in the employment relationship, such as the rise of knowledge and customer service work, increasing income inequality, new forms of management control over work, the spread of non-union industrial relations and the rise to prominence of work-life integration. Reassessing the Employment Relationship provides a critical yet accessible look at the changing employment relationship, and is an indispensible aid to students studying Industrial Relations, Human Resource Management, Organizational Studies, and Business Ethics. PAUL BLYTON is Professor of Industrial Relations and Industrial Sociology at Cardiff University, UK. EDMUND HEERY is Professor of Employment Relations at Cardiff University, UK. PETER TURNBULL is Professor of Human Resource Management and Labour Relations at Cardiff University, UK.

Part of the Comparative Work and Employment Relations series, Putting Labour in its Place is an edited collection, containing cutting-edge research and theoretical innovation on global value chains, the nature of work and labour process theory. It addresses the different processes around the world that each add value to the goods or services being produced; whilst also analysing the idea of labour itself and the exploitation surrounding it. Key benefits: - Written by leading international academics. - A landmark text combining the growing interest in global value chains with labour process theory. - Provides up-to-date critical analysis of global developments.

Amarjit Kaur examines wage labour's role in economic growth and change in Southeast Asia since 1840. Her study focuses on globalization; the international division of labour and how transnational economic processes shaped and continue to shape labour systems. There are five main themes - labour processes, migration and labour systems; labour circulation or mobility; the gendered nature of labour relations; and, class consciousness, worker organization and labour standards. A wide-ranging study which will be of great interest to historians, economists and Asia specialists.

This book emphasizes the importance of production politics, or struggles in the workplace between workers and their employers, for understanding migrant labour regimes in Asia and the Gulf. Drawing from a study of Bangladeshi construction workers in Singapore, as well as on comparative material in the region, Bal shows that migrant labour politics are significantly influenced by the specific form of production politics as well as their variable outcomes. In contrast to contentious politics approaches, this book sheds light on the extent to which migrant labour regimes can be contested by workers and civil society groups and explains the recent rise in migrant labour unrest in the region.

Social Activism in Southeast Asia examines the ways in which social movements operate in a region characterized by a history of authoritarian regimes and relatively weak civil society. It situates cutting-edge accounts of activism around civil and political rights, globalization, peace, the environment, migrant and factory labour, the rights of middle- and working-class women, and sexual identity in an overarching framework of analysis that forefronts the importance of human rights and the state as a focus for social activism. Drawing on contemporary evidence from Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Timor-Leste, the book explores the ways in which social movement actors engage with their international allies, the community and the state in order to promote social change. As well as providing detailed and nuanced analyses of particular movements in specific areas of Southeast Asia, the book addresses difficult questions about the politics, strategies and authenticity of social movements.

These papers focus upon the need to update knowledge and understanding of Asian human resource management. A model is included that can be used to make a comparative analysis of HRM in the region and to establish the various levels of change that need to be assessed.