Globalization, Labour, and Economic Crisis: Insights from Southeast Asia

Abstract

This article highlights some of the problems pertaining to the relationship between globalization and labour in Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Indonesia. The experience of workers and organized labour during the Asian Crisis is used to gauge the position of workers and their organizations in relation to the state and other social forces in this ‘era’ of globalization. Thus, much attention is paid to the domestic power structures which organized labour confronts. It is contended that the position of organized labour in all four Southeast Asian countries considered had been uniformly less than strong prior to the crisis, and this greatly influenced the degree to which labour organizations had the capacity to affect state policy during the debacle of 1997–98. However, the relative position of organized labour in each country was not exactly the same and, it is argued, the capacity of labour to respond to the crisis was an indicator of its standing in relation to the wider constellation of state and society forces. The analysis is informed by the theoretical position that policy-making is not a matter of arriving objectively and neutrally at ‘rational’ decisions, but involves contests between competing interests, and is therefore affected by the nature of the distribution and use of power in society.