Recent developments in the world economy, including deindustrialisation and the digital revolution, have led to an increasingly individualistic relationship between workers and employers, which in turn has weakened labour movements and worker representation. However, this process is not universal, including in some countries of Asia, where trade unions are closely aligned with the interests of the dominant political party and the state. This book considers the many challenges facing trade unions and worker representation in a wide range of Asian countries. For each country, full background is given on how trade unions and other forms of worker representation have arisen. Key questions then considered include the challenges facing trade unions and worker representation in each country, the extent to which these are a result of global or local developments and the actions being taken by trade unions and worker representative bodies to cope with the challenges. This book is dedicated to the memory of Professor Keith Thurley, London School of Economics.

Globalization and labour market deregulation have had an impact on employment and workers, and brought pressure to bear on trade unions. This study looks at the challenges of globalization and deregulation in the Asia Pacific, and possible responses to them in a variety of ways.

This book focuses on new developments in employment in Asia. The context for this discussion is provided by the processes of globalisation, and the associated debate on labour standards. Individual chapters focus on issues such as the role of NGOs as surrogate unions, employment regulation in export processing zones, social protection, and the impact of political reform on the employment relationship. This volume was previously published as a special issue of the journal Asia Pacific Business Review.

Reviews trends in labour relations in 6 countries in the Asia Pacific in the 1990s. Discusses challenges facing trade unions in the near future.

No detailed description available for "Labour and Industry in the Asia-Pacific".

There has been enormous economic development in the Asia-Pacific region since 1945. Employment relations policies have changed rapidly in both the older industrialised market economies and in the newly industrialising economies. It is particularly interesting to compare the various recovery strategies of different countries following the economic turmoil of the late 1990s. The Japanese appeared to continue their pattern of life-time employment. In Australia and New Zealand there have been attempts to discontinue the award-wage system to foster international competitiveness. In South Korea, companies have demanded more flexibility to make it easier to dismiss workers. There has also been much change in other countries, for example, moves towards deregulation in China, Indonesia and Taiwan.This book considers human resource initiatives in the workplace and industrial relations reform from the perspectives of employers, managers, unions and academics, in particular in Australia, China, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Taiwan, and in the Asia-Pacific region generally.Employment Relations in the Asia-Pacific is essential reading for practitioners and students of industrial relations and human resource management at graduate and undergraduate levels, and for specialists in international business and economics, trade unions, employer associations and government.

Offering a comprehensive account of the role of trade unions in Asia today, this book, put together by two editors who have published extensively in the areas of business and economics in Asia, covers all the important Asian economies: both developed and developing. Making a vital contribution to the very small amount of literature that has been published on this topic, this book focuses, in particular on how trade unions have organized to represent workers and the strategies they have adopted. It discusses the issues surrounding wages and working conditions, health and safety, women’s employment opportunities and human resource development, in the context of the major regional economies, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, India, Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia. This is an essential read for both professional and postgraduate students , studying or working in the areas of Asian business.

In the 1990s, Indonesia’s independent labor movement re-emerged after decades of repression. The revival was led by students and NGO activists, who organized industrial workers and spoke on their behalf. Workers and Intellectuals explores how these middle-class activists struggled to define their place in a labor movement shaped by a history of fierce debate about the role of nonworker intellectuals. Drawing on extensive interviews, Michele Ford documents the contribution made by NGOs and student groups to the resurgence of labor activism, explaining how activists and workers perceived their roles and how the situation evolved in the decade after Suharto’s authoritarian regime crumbled in 1998. This fine-grained study of labor organization in a developing country will appeal to scholars of labor history, politics, and sociology, as well as Indonesia specialists.