Women and Labour Organizing in Asia

Description

This book investigates the role of women and labour activism in Asia, demonstrating that women have been active in union and non union based campaigns throughout the region. Although focusing primarily on women, the contributions to this book address issues that affect all workers. Chapters on China, India, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Bangladesh examine the part that female labour activism has played inside, and outside, formal union movements. Whilst documenting the peculiar factors characterising individual national contexts, the book emphasises the similarities in women’s experiences of union and labour activism and the barriers women labour activists have faced. It considers the relationships between women union members and activists and male officials and union members, links with other social movements – particularly the broader women’s movement – and the details of specific labour campaigns and struggles. In doing so, it provides a full account of the role of women in union activism in Asia, covering all the major economies of the region, and successfully challenging the prevailing conception of Asian women workers as passive and uninterested in industrial issues.

Contents

1. Women and Labour Organizing in Asia: Diversity, Autonomy and Activism Kaye Broadbent and Michele Ford 2. Indonesia: Separate Organizing within Unions Michele Ford 3. China: Labour Organizations Representing Women Fang Lee Cooke 4. Malaysia: Women, Labour Activism and Unions Vicki Crinis 5. Sri Lanka: Contradictions for Women in Labour Organizing Janaka Biyanwila 6. Bangladesh: Women and Labour Activism Shahidur Rahman 7. Thailand: Women and Spaces for Labour Organizing Andrew Brown and Saowalak Chaytaweep 8. India: The Self-Employed Women’s Association and Autonomous Organizing Elizabeth Hill 9. Korea: Women, Labour Activism and Autonomous Organizing Kyoung-hee Moon and Kaye Broadbent 10. Japan: Women Workers and Autonomous Organizing Kaye Broadbent

Author Bio

Kaye Broadbent is currently based is in the Department of Industrial Relations at Griffith University, Australia. Her research interests include the impact of gender on work and industrial relations and gender and unions in a comparative context. Her publications include Women’s Employment in Japan: The Experience of Part-time Workers (2003), also published by Routledge.

Michele Ford chairs the Department of Indonesian Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her research focuses on the Indonesian labour movement, labour migration in Southeast Asia and women and work. She is co-editor, with Lyn Parker, of the edited collection Women and Work in Indonesia.

Related Subjects

1. Asian Politics
2. Asian Business
3. Personnel and Human Resource Management
4. Comparative Politics
5. Women's Studies
6. International Political Economy
7. Labour Economics
8. Asian Politics
9. Chinese Politics
10. Korean Studies
11. Asian Economics
12. Japanese Politics
13. Chinese Economics
14. Chinese Politics
15. Asian Culture & Society
16. Japanese Politics
17. Chinese Culture & Society
18. Gender
19. South East Asian Politics
20. Chinese Business
21. India (studies of)
22. Asian Business
23. Trade Unions
24. South Asian Politics
25. Japanese Business
26. Japanese Economics
27. Pakistan (studies of)