Asia and Pacific

The repression of trade union activities caused the death of at least seventeen people in 2011, the arrest of thousands of workers and trade union activists and the dismissal of hundreds of others. The highest number of deaths was in the Philippines, where five trade union activists were murdered. There were changes for the worse, notably in Fiji, where the military junta carried out an aggressive campaign aimed at breaking up the trade union movement by force. It issued decrees that deprived most workers of their internationally recognised fundamental labour rights. In practice trade union activities were banned. Several trade union leaders were arrested on spurious grounds, insulted, threatened and beaten in several cases by government agents. The region’s police forces often resorted to indiscriminate violence against any workers who sought to press home their demands by means of strikes or demonstrations. In May the Sri Lankan police harshly repressed a workers’ (...)

There were changes for the worse, notably in Fiji, where the military junta carried out an aggressive campaign aimed at breaking up the trade union movement by force. It issued decrees that deprived most workers of their internationally recognised fundamental labour rights. In practice trade union activities were banned. Several trade union leaders were arrested on spurious grounds, insulted, threatened and beaten in several cases by government agents.

The region’s police forces often resorted to indiscriminate violence against any workers who sought to press home their demands by means of strikes or demonstrations. In May the Sri Lankan police harshly repressed a workers’ demonstration, killing one participant and injuring 270 others. In Indonesia, two people were killed in October when police opened fire on striking workers at the American company Freeport McMoran. In Bangladesh, a worker was killed and at least 100 others injured when police used tear gas and rubber bullets on demonstrators at the pharmaceutical company Advanced Chemical Industries. At least 100 clothing industry workers who took part in demonstrations were killed during the year by the police and the army in Bangladesh. Serious police violence was also reported in other countries in the region, including India and Nepal.

Employers and the authorities sometimes paid troublemakers to attack trade union activists and workers standing up for the respect of their rights. In India for example, on 3 May thugs hired by the owners of a clothing factory in Uttar Pradesh physically attacked and fired gunshots at hundreds of employees celebrating May Day. The use of hired thugs was also reported in Bangladesh, China, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

In many countries in the region, the procedures to be followed in order to organise a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike are so complicated that it becomes almost impossible to go on strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike legally. Workers who organise or take part in illegal strikes face heavy penalties, notably in South Korea. From Pakistan to Indonesia, China to India, thousands of workers were arrested in 2011 for taking part in peaceful strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike action. In November, more than 122,000 demonstrators in the Indian state of Tripura were arrested for taking part in protests. In Burma there were many cases in which riot police, police custody vans and fire trucks appeared on the scene as soon as a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike started in an attempt to control and intimidate the workers.

The complicity of the authorities enables the employers of certain countries to rid themselves of independent trade unionists by accusing them of terrorism, such as in the Philippines or Pakistan. In November, a Pakistani court sentenced six trade unionists involved in a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike in Faisalabad to a total of 490 years in prison. In Thailand, its lèse majesté laws were used to send a workers’ rights activist to prison.

Workers were dismissed for their participation in trade union activity in almost every country in the region. The use of short term contracts and sub-contracting is another anti-union technique widely used across the region. Workers do not dare join a union for fear of not having their short-term contract renewed. It is the case for Cambodia, South Korea, Indonesia and Japan. In Pakistan, at least 35 temporary workers at a Nestlé factory lost their jobs and some were even sent to prison on trumped up charges when their union campaigned for permanent jobs. In New Zealand, the employers are hiring more workers as contractors rather than employees. As contractors they are not covered by most of the country’s employment laws, including freedom of association freedom of association The right to form and join the trade union of one’s choosing as well as the right of unions to operate freely and carry out their activities without undue interference.

See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework .

Many governments in the region undermine trade union rights by making it very difficult to register independent unions, imposing slow and complicated procedures. Cases in point include Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Macao. Employers take advantage of the time lapse to identify the trade union activists and take reprisals against them, often dismissing them. Some governments also demand that the unions have to represent an excessively high number of workers in an enterprise before they can be registered. In Indonesia for example, the threshold is 50%.

It continues to be extremely difficult to exercise trade union rights in the region’s Export Processing Zones (EPZ export processing zone A special industrial area in a country where imported materials are processed before being re-exported. Designed to attract mostly foreign investors by offering incentives such as exemptions from certain trade barriers, taxes, business regulations, and/or labour laws. s), particularly in South Asia. Trade union representatives are frequently dismissed, notably in Bangladesh. In India, workers have to give 45 days’ notice before going on strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike in an EPZ export processing zone A special industrial area in a country where imported materials are processed before being re-exported. Designed to attract mostly foreign investors by offering incentives such as exemptions from certain trade barriers, taxes, business regulations, and/or labour laws. . Migrant workers frequently have their fundamental rights violated, including their trade union rights. In Thailand, for example, foreign nationals are not permitted to form a union and cannot be elected to trade union office. In South Korea, the government refuses to recognise the migrant workers’ union and harasses its leaders. In some countries, domestic workers remain excluded from the scope of the labour legislation and are the victims of appalling abuse. Independent unions are strictly prohibited in single party states such as China, Vietnam and Laos. The official trade unions are tools to control the workers and have no bargaining powers. Many workers are serving prison sentences for carrying out independent trade union activity. Despite being banned, the number of strikes in China grows steadily, particularly in the private sector. They are often violently dispersed by the police and their leaders arrested and sentenced to “re-education-through-labour”. The number of illegal strikes in Vietnam also increased, with 1,000 cases recorded during the year, compared to 423 the previous year.

Several countries continue to refuse public sector employees the right to unionise or to limit their union rights, such as Bangladesh, Cambodia, South Korea and Japan. In Taiwan, however, after years of waiting, the legislative changes that came into force on 1 May allowed the creation of a union in the education sector.

In New Zealand, legislative changes have restricted workers’ rights. Film and computer game industry workers no longer have the right to organise or bargain collectively under employment law. Unions faced difficulties accessing workplaces.

The year 2011 saw significant change in Burma. The Labour Organisation Bill was signed to replace the repressive 1962 Trade Unions Act. It allows workers to form unions and to strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike . The government initiated a political dialogue with Daw Aung San Suu Kyi and released several political prisoners, though the many trade union activists and leaders of the “88-Generation” remained behind bars. The legislation and legal system that allowed their incarceration have not changed, and forced labour remains widespread.

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Noriyuki Suzuki, General Secretary of ITUC-AP Throughout the Asia-Pacific region, workers are facing alarming levels of “precarious work” – a term used to describe work that is not-permanent, indirect, informal and/or otherwise insecure. Many workers in these jobs are often not fully covered by labour law and social security protections. Common employment associated with precarious work include: temporary labour contracts, hiring through employment agencies or labour brokers, outsourcing outsourcing See contracting-out , individual contracts as a self-employed “independent contractor”, abuse of apprenticeship and intern programs and the like. The rise in precarious work is the result of employment practices meant to maximize short-term profitability and flexibility at the expense of the worker – who now bears most if not all of the risks of health, welfare and employment. While informal employment has always been a serious problem in much of the developing world, it is becoming a (...)

Noriyuki Suzuki, General Secretary of ITUC-AP

Throughout the Asia-Pacific region, workers are facing alarming levels of “precarious work” – a term used to describe work that is not-permanent, indirect, informal and/or otherwise insecure. Many workers in these jobs are often not fully covered by labour law and social security protections. Common employment associated with precarious work include: temporary labour contracts, hiring through employment agencies or labour brokers, outsourcing outsourcing See contracting-out , individual contracts as a self-employed “independent contractor”, abuse of apprenticeship and intern programs and the like.

The rise in precarious work is the result of employment practices meant to maximize short-term profitability and flexibility at the expense of the worker – who now bears most if not all of the risks of health, welfare and employment. While informal employment has always been a serious problem in much of the developing world, it is becoming a serious problem in highly-industrialised countries where well-paying, full-time jobs are being replaced by precarious jobs. Almost no sector is being spared. The use of precarious work strikes at the core of trade union rights, as workers under such employment relationships find it difficult if not impossible to organise with fellow workers to form or join a union at the same enterprise (in some cases they will not have the same employer where subcontracting is employed) or in the same sector.

In 2006, the ILO International Labour Organization A tripartite United Nations (UN) agency established in 1919 to promote working and living conditions. The main international body charged with developing and overseeing international labour standards.

See tripartism, ITUC Guide to international trade union rights promulgated Recommendation 198 on the Employment Relationship, which sets forth policy guidelines on protections for workers in the employment relationship and for determining the existence of an employment relationship. While generally useful concepts, these are unfortunately generally ignored.

The following are just a few examples:

In Korea, the situation is particularly acute. The growth of precarious work accelerated rapidly following the Asian financial crisis of the 1990s. Korea now has very high levels (by some estimates over 50% of the workforce) of labour casualisation casualisation The practice of increasing the flexibility of the workforce by replacing permanent, full-time workers with workers on temporary, irregular contracts. . 2011 statistics show that the employment conditions of irregular workers are even worse than before, with average pay almost half that of those employed on regular contracts. The labour market is now essentially bifurcated, with workers on regular contracts (more often university-educated, professional employees) and some degree of employment security and everyone else, with apparently limited mobility between the two. According to Korean unions, the new “National Employment Strategy 2020”, a government initiative to increase employment, includes provisions that will further deregulate private employment agencies, expand indirect employment, and increase precarious employment.

In Japan, the situation is similar – with a growing “precariat” and ever deepening inequality between regular and non-regular workers. Latest statistics show that non-regular workers account for over one-third of the employed population. According to Evans and Gibb, “The combination of a prolonged recession driving corporate restructuring towards a more western model; a clearly articulated and implemented deregulation on the part of government, an active push from the employers’ side to popularise and implement differential statuses for workers; a pre-existing insider/outsider division at the level of the workplace and an employer-based system of social protection have offered a recipe for severe negative consequences resulting from the rise in precarious work in Japan.”

In Malaysia, the MTUC and a broad array of civil society organisations banded together to oppose, ultimately unsuccessfully, the Act to Amend the Employment Act of 1955, which further entrenched precarious work through labour subcontracting. The practice frustrates the full exercise of freedom of association freedom of association The right to form and join the trade union of one’s choosing as well as the right of unions to operate freely and carry out their activities without undue interference.

See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework and collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
and has otherwise led to exploitation of workers, including migrant workers. However, following a nationwide protest by the MTUC, the government offered to draw up binding regulations to prevent the use of outsourced workers to carry out work of regular or permanent nature. On February 14, 2011, Malaysian human rights activist Charles Hector was sued for over $3.2 million by electronic firm Asahi Kosei (M) Sdn Bhd for defamation after he posted on his blog reports he received from Burmese migrant workers detailing violations of labour and human rights. The facts of the case were not in contention; rather, Mr Hector was found liable and was forced to issue a retraction because he had associated the abuses with Asahi Kosei rather than its subcontractor, even though Asahi Kosei directed and supervised the labour of the migrant workers.

In Indonesia, workers have seen been outsourcing outsourcing See contracting-out and contract work increase dramatically in recent years. The number of permanent workers in the formal labour force fell from 67 per cent in 2005 to only 35 per cent in 2011. Trade unions are waging a campaign to revise Labour Law 13/2003 to improve regulation of contract and agency labour. Precarious work is particularly acute in the nation’s numerous export processing zones (EPZ export processing zone A special industrial area in a country where imported materials are processed before being re-exported. Designed to attract mostly foreign investors by offering incentives such as exemptions from certain trade barriers, taxes, business regulations, and/or labour laws. s). It is estimated that 98 per cent of workers in the EPZ export processing zone A special industrial area in a country where imported materials are processed before being re-exported. Designed to attract mostly foreign investors by offering incentives such as exemptions from certain trade barriers, taxes, business regulations, and/or labour laws. s on the island of Batam (home to 25 EPZ export processing zone A special industrial area in a country where imported materials are processed before being re-exported. Designed to attract mostly foreign investors by offering incentives such as exemptions from certain trade barriers, taxes, business regulations, and/or labour laws. s hosting 800 multinationals – mostly electronic manufacturing) are on contract or agency work. Some workers describe working on repeated 3-month contracts, then working for an agency and then brought back on a new short term contract – all to avoid workers from ever becoming permanent workers (workers employed for 3 years at the same company are entitled to permanent work). Workers face low wages ($100 per month), long hours and in hazardous working conditions. Trade unions are fortunately making important inroads, bringing hope to the tens of thousands of workers in the Batam EPZ export processing zone A special industrial area in a country where imported materials are processed before being re-exported. Designed to attract mostly foreign investors by offering incentives such as exemptions from certain trade barriers, taxes, business regulations, and/or labour laws. s.

In Australia, precarious work has also been on the rise. According to the ACTU, around 40% of workers are engaged in insecure work arrangements such as casual work, fixed term work, contracting or labour hire. The Australian labour movement recently commissioned an independent inquiry “to examine the extent of the insecure work and its impact on workers, their families and the community, and to provide recommendations on measures that can be taken to address any problems that are identified.” Over 500 submissions were sent in by workers, unions and academics on the nature of precarious work in Australia. The inquiry will be undertaken in 2012.

However, unions are fighting back hard and winning throughout the Asia-Pacific Region. In the courts, workers are advancing new legal theories to limit the abuse of precarious contracts. In the field, unions are organising organising The process of forming or joining a trade union, or inducing other workers to form or join one. workers, including migrant workers, in innovative ways, having to take into account complex employment structures. Internally, unions are restructuring to integrate precarious workers into their ranks, and elevating the issue within their organisations. And at the bargaining table, unions are using bargaining clout to try to ensure that workers in the same enterprise are treated equally, regardless of the contractual employer. The road ahead is long, but unions are making a difference.

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Workers Facing Growing Precarity in the Asia Pacific Region