Refining Varieties of Labour Movements: Perspectives from the Asia-Pacific Region

Introduction

In the 21st century, labour movements in many countries are confronted with critical challenges, derived mainly from mega trends of socio-economic transformation, such as globalization, deindustrialization and the digital revolution. Globalization, which may be characterized as a process of increasing worldwide interconnectedness across national boundaries, has led to a significant shift in the power relations between employers and workers (Buchholz et al., 2009). Within the globalizing environment, employers have been able to impose greater market risks and labour flexibility on their employees, resulting in an asymmetric labour–management relationship (Breen, 1997; Hyman, 2007). Deindustrialization and the digital revolution also tended to weaken the collectivist identity of working people and have strengthened attempts by employers and governments to individualize the post-industrial employment relationship (Peetz, 2010). These structural transformations have contributed to growing social inequality and made working people’s lives more vulnerable throughout the world. The weakening of labour movements, particularly trade unions, has been a consequence of these global trends.

Labour movements, which protected and enhanced working people’s lives during the earlier era of industrialization, have been exposed to a variety of internal problems in the era of globalizing post-industrialization. However, the five phenomena that Rose (1993) identified as core problems facing labour unions two decades ago remain relevant to the current situation in many countries around the world, namely:

contraction – as their membership continues declining;

Unions have also suffered from ‘institutional sclerosis’, as their bureaucratized operations have not dealt effectively with radically changing environments (Pocock, 1998). In addition, unions are criticized for narrowing their representational protection for ‘insiders’ (members) and excluding unorganized ‘outsiders’, thereby creating a crisis of solidarity in labour movements. As a consequence, some unions have metamorphosed into a self-interested weapon of organized workers’ groups, rather than providing a democratic voice for the entire working class and being a ‘sword of justice’ (Lee, 2011).

The attenuation of labour movements, however, is not uniform in its degree across the world. As the ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ (VoC) perspective indicates, the impact of globalization on labour markets and working people’s lives varies across countries, since it is filtered by different institutional foundations of national political economies (Hall and Soskice, 2001). For instance, globalization has had a more damaging effect on unions in liberal market economies (e.g. the United States and the United Kingdom) than their counterparts in some coordinated market economies (e.g. Germany and the Nordic countries) (Thelen, 2001). The intensity and concrete forms of challenges posed to labour movements by the mega-trends vary across countries and are influenced by the context of national institutional foundations, as well as by the historical traditions of unionism and worker activism in each country. Hence, many unions have developed and implemented diverse strategies in order to cope with crises arising from various external challenges and internal problems as they seek to revitalize labour movements. Frege and Kelly (2003) identify six strategies for the revitalization of the labour movement in the present global economy, namely: organizing; labour–management partnership; political action; reform of union structure; coalition-building; and international solidarity. Comparing five Western countries, they argue that the renewal strategies adopted by unions vary in accordance with the differing political economy models of institutional arrangements that exist (Frege and Kelly, 2003).

The ‘Varieties of Unionism’ (VoU) perspective has both academic and practical relevance to the strategic choices of labour movement revitalization. However, this perspective also has limitations. Like the ‘VoC’ typologies, which are largely focused on the advanced market economies, the ‘VoU’ perspective is primarily based on the situation and experiences of unions in the developed Western countries. Thus, it is debatable whether either the ‘VoU’ or ‘VoC’ perspectives can be applied to the different contexts of developing countries and state-led economies.

Currently, the capitalist market economic system is dominant, with only a few exceptions such as North Korea, Cuba and Myanmar. Globalization accelerated after the fall of the Socialist Bloc in the late 1980s and fostered the integration of non-Western countries into the world market. However, there exist greater varieties of capitalist market economies than the VoC literature assumes. Although many non-Western countries embrace the common governing logic and institutional foundations of the capitalist market economy, the concrete forms and features of their market economies not only differ from the advanced Western countries, but are also heterogeneous. They vary in accordance with their historical trajectory, their levels of industrialization and economic development, the nature of their political regimes, the extent of democratization, socio-cultural traditions and ethnic compositions. Hence, labour movements in non-Western countries have distinctive socio-economic status in their relationships with the state, labour–capital power balance and their labour market structures, which are different from most advanced Western countries. In many developing economies, labour movements are often a junior partner of the authoritarian state, and are subject to exploitative anti-labour practices imposed by foreign capital or state–business coalitions. They also have to deal with pre-modern issues derived from the extensive presence of the informal labour market. Confronted with the common threats of globalization, which can render working people’s lives vulnerable, unions and collective workers’ groups in the non-Western countries have tried to revitalize their labour movements like their counterparts in the advanced Western countries. However, these labour movements take different approaches, which reflect their distinctive national contexts.

Our volume aims to broaden a research horizon of the ‘VoU’ perspective by comparing the labour movements of six countries in the Asia-Pacific region – India, China, South Korea, Malaysia, Japan and Australia. ¹ The Asia-Pacific region is becoming an engine of global economic growth, and includes very diverse ethnic, socio-cultural and economic contexts. The six countries in this volume reflect the great diversity of the Asia-Pacific region in many respects: China and India are the two giant developing countries, with the former transforming the socialist economy towards a state-led market economy, while the latter has a long tradition of social-democratic government; South Korea is one of the first successful newly industrializing economies (NIEs) in Asia, while Malaysia is a leading example of the second generation of Asian NIEs; Japan and Australia are the wealthiest and most advanced economies in the region, with the former being the first industrialized Asian country and the latter building a multicultural society with strong historical ties to Europe.

Given the diverse historical backgrounds and institutional foundations of their political economies, the six country cases provide a good opportunity to explore the varieties of labour movements from a broader comparative perspective. In order to facilitate comparisons of the evolution of different labour movement revitalization strategies, their priorities and causal factors of their success and failure, a common research framework was developed. The authors of each article have addressed the following questions in various ways:

What is the recent evolution of the labour movement in each country?

Based upon the common framework, the country papers shed light on specific topics covered in the VoU perspective. Faced with different challenges and distinctive national contexts, labour unions and workers’ groups have taken diverse strategic approaches towards the revitalization of labour movements. The key issues raised in relation to the varieties of labour movements in each of the six countries may be summarized as follows.

India

The article on India by Rina Agarwala examines the relationship between the Indian state and informal workers’ transnational labour movements. Indian formal sector unions have shied away from transnational efforts, and Indian human rights organizations have avoided the state by pressuring consumers to hold employers accountable. This article shows how Indian informal workers’ unions have used transnational activism in three ways to generate new forms of interaction and integration with the Indian state. The article draws from the case of the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), which organizes informal workers through an innovative organizational strategy that combines the power of unions with the security of cooperatives.

First, transnational efforts enable informal workers to restructure the constraints faced by the Indian state by going to the same international level as those constraints. Second, informal workers use transnational linkages to establish relations with branded knowledge brokers in the North, which arms state officials with sophisticated data that can justify their attention to informal workers. Finally, informal workers create frames that appeal to a range of transnational social movements so that they can work themselves into nearly all state-sponsored social agendas. Because their ultimate goal is to attract the Indian state’s attention, informal workers’ transnational efforts have not veered away from local issues and a commitment to empowerment. The article shows how SEWA increased the visibility of informal workers to integrate their cause into the Indian government’s agenda. The prevailing democratic context also ensured that the Indian state could not repress or ignore the informal workers’ movements. Hence, by engaging the state, SEWA gained legitimacy.

China

In relation to China, the article by Eli Friedman analyses how the economic crises of the late 2000s affected the relationships between Chinese workers and the state-run All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU). While the unions responded to the rising level of unemployment with an administrative and policy-oriented strategy, workers took to the streets with direct action. The ACFTU’s traditional approach of lobbying the state for protective regulation, as well as relying on state agencies to monitor and enforce laws and regulations, failed to stem the rising discontent and insurgency among workers.

The article focuses on a strike at the Nanhai Honda transmission plant in the spring and summer of 2010, when worker discontent resulted in a wildcat strike. Initially, the workers sought an increase in their base-level wages, but later extended their demands to include a ‘reorganization’ of the enterprise union, the rehiring of two strike leaders who had been dismissed and a guarantee that there would be no reprisals against the strikers.

Before the Honda strike ended, unrest had spread to other auto plants as well as spilling over to other industrial sectors. The Honda strike was finally settled after the workers were assisted by a Professor of Labour Law from Renmin University, who served as legal counsel to the workers and negotiated with management on their behalf. The company agreed to wage increases and officers from the Guangdong Federation of Trade Unions agreed to preside over new elections to elect leaders of the enterprise union. Pro-reform activists in the union also urged the government to enact new labour legislation.

Friedman envisages three possible scenarios for the future. First, there may be further reforms in which the ACFTU becomes more democratic. Second, there may be a period of expanded radicalism in which worker insurgency will expand in scope and intensity. Third, there may be a stalemate in which unions are not reformed and worker insurgency settles down. However, Friedman concludes that ongoing divergence and conflict between union representatives and workers are both likely to increase.

South Korea

The attempt at the organizational transformation of unions in South Korea from enterprise-based to industry-wide bodies is examined by Byoung-Hoon Lee and Sanghoon Yi. They view this development against the background of the decline in union density and the reduction in the social influence of unions since the late 1990s, particularly following the economic crisis of 1997.

A comparison is undertaken between two leading industry-wide unions: the Korea Health and Medical Workers Union (KHMWU) and the Korea Metal Workers Union (KMWU). Although small by comparison with the KMWU, the KHMWU has developed a strong centralized system of collective bargaining. Despite being faced with strong employer opposition, the KHMWU adopted a successful strategy of emphasizing both patient service and serving the public interest. It has also achieved standardized employment conditions across the industry. By contrast, the KMWU, which is the largest union in Korea, has adopted a ‘loosely coupled’ organizational structure that is characterized by low bargaining coverage, exclusion of wage negotiations and a decentralized approach to strike action. Unlike the KHMWU, the KMWU is restricted by the inertia of enterprise unions, and its affiliated unions are reluctant to cede decision-making to the industry-wide union.

The authors conclude that while Korean unions have made progress towards industry unions, there is still strong opposition to this approach. They argue that the success of union renewal and industry unionism depends on the leadership of unions to combine the two logics of both membership and influence. This is illustrated by the success of the KHMWU, which has established a strong collective identity among its membership that has enabled it to achieve centralized bargaining in a flexible manner.

Malaysia

Peter Wad examines the contemporary challenges faced by the Malaysian union movement, which remains organizationally, politically and economically weak due to a combination of factors, including low union density and opposition by both employers and the government. The focus of the article is on the large and strategically important electronics industry in which the government permitted enterprise unions in 1988 after unions had been ‘de facto’ banned since the establishment of the industry. After two decades, ‘in-house’ unionism failed to include electronics employees and the government allowed the establishment of four larger regionally based unions in Peninsular Malaysia. This was a compromise between the demands of workers for a national industry union and the government’s offer to permit the formation of a state-based union. However, the new regional unions have not been able to overcome resistance by transnational companies to negotiate and sign any collective agreements.

The article argues that a shift in the political and economic regime is required to free the unions from the ‘iron frame’ of hostile labour legislation. Such a regime change will come faster with the support of trade unions and their members. However, if unions take part in the partisan political struggle in Malaysia, they risk being demolished by the current governing alliance. Party politics in Malaysia is ‘ethno-politics’ and the trade union movement is a multi-ethnic organization that is considered too weak to withstand government action, which plays the ethnic card against it. In 2010, the trade unions chose the ‘safe card’ by electing a non-partisan President and General Secretary to the top positions of the unions’ peak organization, the Malaysian Trades Union Congress. The dilemma of partisan/non-partisan union politics may be overcome if the unions can demonstrate to the government, the public and employers that they can play a significant role in enabling the country to move beyond the ‘middle-income trap’ in order to achieve a more sustainable and highly productive market economy and thereby improve employment conditions. However, if the unions are publicly stigmatized as ‘irrelevant’, they will have little chance of breaking out of their ‘iron frame’.

Japan

Non-regular workers comprise approximately 35% of the Japanese workforce and are part of the ‘de-normalization of employment’ that has increased since the bubble economy collapsed in Japan in the early 1990s. Hak-Soo Oh focuses on part-time workers who account for about half of the non-regular workers in Japan. Although the government revised the Part-time Workers Employment Law in 2006, it failed to arrest the increase in numbers or solve the problems that part-time workers faced in the labour market. The rising proportion of non-regular workers, including those who work part time, has caused major social and economic problems in Japan. It has also challenged union policies that traditionally excluded non-regular workers from union membership.

Oh examines two different types of strategies adopted by both employers and unions in Japan towards part-time workers. A homogeneous strategy provides equal treatment for all workers in relation to human resource practices and union membership. By contrast, a heterogeneous strategy discriminates against part-time workers in relation to wage policies, skill development and involvement in unions.

A study of five companies by Oh revealed a strong correlation between the strategic approach by companies towards part-time workers and their business performance. When both the company and union adopted a homogeneous strategy towards part-time workers, sustained business growth was achieved, even during an economic recession. This strategy also had other positive outcomes, including: strengthening the loyalty of workers to both their employer and union; promoting active involvement in workplace innovation; and increasing the union’s power and influence over corporate policymaking.

Australia

During the past three decades, membership density in Australian unions has declined by around 60%. Although union membership has stabilized in the past year or so, the union movement has been struggling to achieve revitalization and renewal. However, David Peetz and Janis Bailey analyse the highly effective ‘Your Rights at Work’ campaign, which was led by the Australian Council of Trade Unions in 2007. The campaign won widespread public support in the national election of that year and contributed to the defeat of the conservative Liberal–National Coalition government and the election of the Labor Party.

The two main strategies employed by the unions in Australia to seek a revitalization of their membership have been amalgamation, to create fewer but stronger unions, and organizing, to gain more union members by active recruitment in the workplace. Yet neither of these strategies has succeeded in achieving major increases in union membership. While the ‘Your Rights at Work’ campaign was a major factor in the election of a Labor government in 2007, the changes in labour law that the new government introduced did little to strengthen workers’ rights to take collective action and did not provide a major boost to union membership.

Peetz and Bailey use the metaphor of ‘boxing and dancing’ to describe the dialectic between conflict and cooperation in workplace relations. While unions have sought to focus more on ‘dancing’ with the Labor government, they have found that the government has limited interest in expanding union rights. Furthermore, they have faced increasingly hostile employers who would prefer to ‘box’ and pursue aggressive anti-union strategies. Hence, unions are finding themselves ‘dancing alone’ as both the government and employers have proved to be reluctant and even recalcitrant ‘dance partners’.

Conclusion

As demonstrated by the six country case studies of this symposium, labour movements in the Asia-Pacific are confronted by diverse challenges, which are both external (relating to the actions of employers or the state, or changes in the economy or polity) as well as internal (relating to membership, resources or strategic capabilities), which sometimes interact. Some challenges to Asian labour movements are comparable with those in Europe and North America, such as declining density and the weakening social leverage of unions under neoliberal labour market reforms (e.g. in South Korea, Japan and Australia). Other challenges are more characteristic of the situation in Asia, such as: coercive management practices; insurgency among the rank-and-file membership; interventionist labour policies by the state; and the massive presence of the informal employment sector (e.g. in China, India and Malaysia). The repertoire of revitalizing strategies adopted by labour movements in the Asia-Pacific countries is almost identical to that of their counterparts in the advanced Western economies identified by Frege and Kelly (2003). These strategies include: organizing drives to recruit new members; organizational renewal; labour–management partnerships; transnational solidarity with other unions; and various forms of political action. The specific forms of strategies adopted by labour movements of the Asia-Pacific region, however, differ from their Western counterparts. For example, the Malaysian unions’ organizing campaigns and Indian transnational activism have been aimed at gaining the active involvement of the state to embrace workers’ interests in its labour policy; Korean unions have sought to move towards centralized bargaining arrangements as well as industry unionism, albeit with mixed outcomes; Japanese unions have adopted labour–management partnerships in an effort to organize part-time workers within the established norms of cooperative industrial relations; and Australian unions have combined various revitalization strategies, yet have experienced growing distance in their relationship with the state, so that they find themselves ‘dancing alone’. China provides an interesting case where bureaucratized unions are facing growing worker militancy under the state-led polity and the transition to a market economy. Hence, labour movements in the Asia-Pacific region have revealed distinctive strategic approaches that are different from those in advanced Western economies in relation to their revitalization. Asian labour movements are situated in different national contexts of political economy and industrial relations. Hence, they are dealing with challenges posed by the 21st-century’s globalizing economy in their own ways. It is intended that this volume will contribute to a broader comparative perspective in order to further refine the ‘VoU’ concept in the context of the Asia-Pacific region.