Editor’s Note:
In Part Two, we focus on the interdependence and dialectics of liberalisation and the emergence of the working class as key actors in the 1990s and 2000s, which laid the groundwork for the Asian strike waves of the late 2000s and early 2010s. In particular, we take a close look at how economic and political shifts spurred institutional transformations by examining the divergent histories and parallel developments in Cambodia, Indonesia, Vietnam and China, as workers in varying contexts mobilised in response to both enabling and constraining industrial relations frameworks, labour activism in these countries evolved into diverse yet strikingly similar movements.
Kevin Lin (“Kevin”): In the post-Second World War period, there have been waves of industrialisation in Asia, including Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, some of which were commonly known as the Asian Tigers. Then, in the 1980s and 1990s, several East and Southeast Asian countries also began to industrialise based on an export-oriented manufacturing model, including Cambodia, Indonesia, China, Vietnam, and other countries. We want to provide the background on the industrialisation of these countries and their integration into the global economy. Let’s start with Cambodia. Can you discuss how Cambodia industrialised and became integrated into the global economy?
Kriangsak Teerakowitkajorn (“Kiang”) In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Cambodia made significant strides toward integrating the economy into global markets. The economy is centred on a few key industries, including textiles and garments, tourism, construction, and agriculture. Textiles and garments have been the dominant industries. There were international players, such as the US and the EU, which pushed Cambodia to modernise its economy to meet the global market’s demands or those of the brands and buyers. International pressures played an important role in institutionalising the economy, for example, by pushing for the country’s first labour laws. The East Asian countries that liberalised before were the first investors to come to Cambodia in the early 1990s to mid-1990s, so the first factories were owned by Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, or Malaysia.
This is a really important background to understand this period of industrialisation. It’s mainly capital from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, which industrialised earlier. There is also a kind of push factor. The wages in many of those countries, including Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, have increased significantly, prompting capital to seek locations with cheaper labour. They looked to places like China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand, and other countries that were also opening up at the same time. There were both push and pull factors that contributed to this period of export-oriented industrialisation.
In the case of Indonesia, the Suharto government invited foreign capital to enter the country in the late 1980s and early 1990s. One of the effects of this is the rise of industrial export zones or special economic zones, where labour activism has emerged because a large number of workers congregate and live in the same areas. Returning to Cambodia, the economy was primarily dominated by young women workers from the countryside, indicating a process of proletarianisation. When the country opens up its economy, a new working class emerges. I wonder if we could say the same thing about Vietnam and China.
Kevin: There are some important differences and also some striking similarities. One main difference is that both Vietnam and China had centrally planned economies, and they did not allow private enterprises to operate in their countries until the 1980s and the 1990s, when they started this process of industrialisation around the same time as Cambodia and Indonesia, building an export-oriented economy by setting up special economic zones. So, the histories are not quite the same. However, there’s a high degree of similarity in terms of the conditions that emerged in those special economic zones, as you mentioned.
The Special Economic Zones are spaces where the state has created favourable conditions for businesses, with low taxation, but very repressive conditions for workers and labour activists. You see a massive amount of super-exploitation and very weak labour protection. At the same time, you also see the emergence of a new generation of rural migrant workers. These individuals have recently relocated from smaller towns or rural areas to the cities. And they are, as you mentioned earlier, overwhelmingly young female workers. I think this is kind of a familiar story across the region,
Kiang: A lot of these foreign investments came to Indonesia and Cambodia with the expectation of not having to deal with the trade unions. Based on my research in Thailand, in the industrial zones or export production zones that were established, I found documents with advertisements that invited capital to come and proclaim, “This is going to be a union-free zone.” On the one hand, the government in Cambodia passed the first labour laws in 1997 and tried to qualify for the US-Cambodia trade agreement; on the other hand, the labour laws and industrial relation framework that was laid down didn’t take root and did not allow workers to exercise their rights, or for the labour movement to grow to thrive.
Kevin: There is again something similar in terms of the resistance by capital to any union presence and activities in China and Vietnam. In special economic zones of both countries, there is only one state-controlled union federation. In China, it is the All-China Federation of Trade Unions. In Vietnam, it is the General Confederation of Labour. There is only one union federation that is permitted to exist, and no other independent trade union can be formed, as doing so risks arrest and imprisonment. So, what that does is perpetuate the dominance of those state-controlled unions that monopolised worker representation and excluded workers from forming their organisations. Even today, neither of these two countries has independent trade unions, and worker organisations have been essentially criminalised in general. Workers’ resistance can continue if their demands are only economic, but any serious effort to organise workers on a mass scale or politically is lacking. If you are a worker leader or organiser, you could feel severe repression from the government.
Kiang: I spoke with one Indonesian activist, and what I learned about the strikes in Indonesia in the early 1990s is interesting. When we discussed that period, people would say that Indonesia had only one national union, which was the SPSI. Then, the activist told me that, due to the industrial zones and concentration of workers, the first strikes were documented in the early 1990s, even though some met with violent responses from the military; however, some strikes were not suppressed. During that period, a nuanced picture of labour activism emerged, where some strikes were led or facilitated by student activists as well. Student activists played a crucial role at the time in supporting workers. Student activists and independent activists played crucial roles in coordinating some of the strikes on the ground.
Kevin: This is interesting. In other countries not covered in this series, such as South Korea, you see the vital role that students play in supporting the workers’ movement. However, in places like China and Vietnam, where political organising is much more constrained, students would face dire consequences if they were to play a role in organising or supporting workers. However, we do see a significant number of wildcat strikes from the early 1990s onwards.
Because the official or state-controlled trade unions do not organise workers to go on strike and do not endorse workers to do so, workers had to organise themselves independently. The governments in both China and Vietnam do allow that to happen, even though they will stop it if they feel this is getting out of hand, such as spilling into the streets. However, if workers only demand economic improvements in their working conditions without including political demands, they are likely to remain unaddressed. In the region, especially during the early period of industrialisation, you see many workers go on strike without unions or with very little union support, because unions either don’t exist or are very weak at the beginning.
Kiang: I have come across academic studies that attempt to explain strikes in Asia and grapple with these dynamics, where many wildcat strikes occurred without key support from the unions. I would like to return to our main point about the dialectical relationship between market and worker forces. During this period of industrialisation in the 1990s, the first labour laws in Cambodia allowed some independent trade unions to register and exist; however, at the same time, the relationship between trade unions and political parties was also developing. However, in the case of Indonesia, which differs in terms of how trade unions and political parties established a relationship, the outcome was different.
In the case of Indonesia, I would like to highlight the legal framework and the political transition that occurred after Suharto, which opened up a political space for workers to operate. Numerous changes resulted from below, stemming from labour unrest and workers participating in protests. After Suharto, President Habibie invited the ILO to help draft the labour laws and President Wahid Abdul Rahman. Wahid, after that, even pushed for Reformasi, which led to the ratification of all eight ILO core conventions. That makes Indonesia unique today, as it’s the only country in the region to have ratified the IO Convention on Freedom of Expression and Collective Bargaining. It all came from the resistance, from the labour and social movements.
Kevin: I think we see across the region that when you have the first wave of industrialisation, workers’ resistance almost happened straightaway. And they may not always be recognisable, especially if they are wildcat strikes. The strikes were mostly on smart scales, and many may only last for half a day or a day or two at most. So, they don’t consistently receive recognition or gain national or international attention. However, the resistance always emerges and is rooted in capital.
I have conducted research on a factory fire in China in 1993, which occurred during the early period of industrialisation in China. You have this first generation of women workers, very young rural girls who come to the city to work. A major fire occurred as a result of inadequate work safety protection. More than 80 workers died in the fire, and dozens of others were injured. It was treated as a tragedy.
However, when I looked through the archive of news reports from the time and interviewed one of the surviving workers, I discovered that there were strikes all the time. The workers at the factory where a fire occurred went on strike four times in the year before the fire. A lot of the strikes were just like, “The food was terrible, and we went on half-day strike to protest to get better food”, or it’s because “the management suspect workers are stealing something, so they came to the dormitory where workers stay to search, and we are really happy with that and on strike”. I want to recognise that kind of spontaneous organising and strikes that sometimes get forgotten or not recognised because they’re too small, too short, or not led by unions. Workers’ resistance – I think this is something important to highlight – often emerges spontaneously and carries enormous disruptive power on its own, and is often quite successful as well, in terms of securing their immediate demands.
Kiang: We saw that in the cases of Cambodia and Thailand, the supporting role of the trade unions was quite limited. Workers often rely on social movements, civil society, or other mechanisms to leverage their power and exercise their rights. At the same time, it’s important to recognise that, even after the first labour laws were enacted in these countries, we saw an increase in the number of trade unions or independent trade unions; however, this didn’t go hand in hand with the number of collective bargaining agreements. In many factories, the trade unions, as a mechanism at the workplace level, don’t function effectively, so they have to rely on larger politics to mobilise or join with social movements. I wonder if, in the case of China and Vietnam, that’s also the case when we think about authoritarian governments that often clamp down on freedom of expression.
Kevin: In Vietnam and China, there have been significant political reforms. The Communist Parties in both countries were very adaptive. They recognised the challenge from below, stemming from workers’ resistance, and they adapted to that condition. That includes rolling out labour laws and social protection measures. Even in the absence of democratisation, there can still be serious political reforms. As we progress through this series, we will compare the conditions, worker militancy, and political reforms in countries that democratise, as well as in those that do not. There are essential divergences, but I would also point to numerous similarities. Looking at the political level and the state is valid, but it doesn’t explain other things, especially when considering patterns of industrialisation and work resistance. I would point to numerous similarities across very different regime types.
Another thing I want to pick up about the feminisation of the workforce is informal labour; with so many young women workers coming to the cities and working in these factories, they come in hand in hand with very informal conditions, and they very often fall outside of formal industrial relations system, A lot of large trade unions organise the state and public sector. In contrast, the female-dominated sectors tend to operate in very informal conditions, which means they are not protected by labour laws in practice.
Kiang: By the end of the 1990s, what did we see? Where are we in terms of industrialisation and dynamics of the market and the workers’ forces?
Kevin: After a decade or more of industrialisation and integration into the global economy, you certainly see the expansion and the dominance of market forces. You can see that market forces are playing an increasingly larger role in structuring employment relations. As a result, you see a particular kind of labour regime taking shape where workers are super-exploited, and trade Unions are either prevented from forming or are kept weak. However, you also see the emergence of worker resistance, mainly in the form of spontaneous and wildcat strikes. And you see, the governments feel compelled to address labour rights violations and start to put into place policies and laws that can protect workers from maybe the worst kind of exploitation or occupational health and safety disasters. You see a pushback by workers against commodification, informality and the dominance of market forces.
I would like to ask about the Asian Financial Crisis: What kind of impact did it have on those countries, and how did it affect the dynamics of state, labour, and capital relations?
Kiang: Following the 1980s and 1990s that you just described, the Asian Financial Crisis disrupted this trajectory and dynamics in a way that tipped the balance even more to capital. In many countries, the Asian Financial Crisis prompted governments to enact a series of laws that further limited workers’ rights and protected the interests of capital. For example, in Indonesia, the government was at the time attempting to pass a law that would permit companies to lay off workers without paying severance, which triggered a series of strikes in the 2000s. One of the most critical factors following the crisis is the increasing prevalence of flexible employment relationships, such as outsourcing or short-term contracts. It has become a serious threat to workers’ rights in Southeast Asia. So that was a critical moment.
So far, we have covered the dynamic between market forces and worker movements, which has been a defining feature in many countries. We haven’t discussed political transition much, and I think in the next episode, we will delve more into this topic, along with the liberalisation process and how these dual processes complicate the dynamics we’ve discussed. Additionally, we will consider the complex relationship between political parties and trade unions.
