This year, in the run up to International Women's Day, on March 8, 2016, AMRC is publishing a series of stories to highlight the struggles and voices of women workers from across Asia.
Stop oil palm plantations! Fight for land, fight for life!
Statement
March 30, 2016
As we mark the Day of the Landless on March 29, the Asian Peasant Coalition (APC) is launching the “Stop Oil Palm Plantations!” campaign. This, amidst the massive and aggressive expansion of the palm oil industry that further threatens the life and livelihood of countless farmers, farm workers, indigenous peoples, and other oppressed and exploited rural sectors in the region.
This education module on capital mobility explains the capitalist crisis, and assesses the impact of capital mobility on workers and trade unions. The module also provides stories of workers in the global supply chains and their struggles.
The content of this book is upon of the discussion in the Fourth Asian Roundtable on Social Security meeting which was co-organised by AMRC and the University of Philippines in Manila. The book includes country reports on social protection in Asia, overview on the road to social protection in Asia, outcome of the conference, among others. The book serves to provide comprehensive information on social protection for all from the labour perspective in Asia.
Union busting in its worst form continues in Sri Lanka’s Free Trade Zones (FTZ).
This is not new.
Unions have never been encouraged to form in the tax free zones set up for the benefit of foreign investors, with little regard or the workers who provide their profits.
This book is more than a review of labour law, it is the only comprehensive review available of labour law in the Asia Pacific region. It investigates the impact of labour law on workers in 30 countries. It analyses trade union and labour activists’ responses to changes in labour law, and examines what labour law means for workers’ daily lives. Each chapter representing a country can be downloaded country wise for download below.
Sri Lanka has a population of over 19 million that consists of Sinhalese, the majority ethnic group, and Tamils and Muslims as minority groups. Over 50 percent of the population and the labour force of 6.6 million are women.
There was a lot of press hype and UN-generated publicity about the Fourth World Conference on Women (FWCW) in Beijing and the NGO parallel meeting held in Huairou, one hour from Beijing. The women’s Conference was not the last large UN event in a seemingly endless string of UN conferences, but it just as well could have been. Why such a fuss for a UN event that would probably turn out to be another pointless extravaganza?
EPZs are viewed as union-free zones where workers are exploited and their rights to organise are brutally trampled. But the situation for EPZ workers cannot be truly understood if analysed in isolation of family, society, and the global marketplace. Conditions in the EPZs are a reflection and magnification of universal class and gender problems. Even though women are undervalued in the labour force, their families, governments, and employers benefit from and depend on their low cost (and often free) labour inside and outside the home.