The Asian Transnational Corporations Monitoring Network (ATNC) recently held its Biennial Meeting last October 22-24, 2015 in Bangkok, Thailand. More than 57 delegates from 18 countries/territories came together to discuss the present realities of transnational corporations (TNCs) operating in Asia and the impact and reaction of the working people towards capital.
Asia Monitor Resource Centre (AMRC) conducted last August 13-14, 2015 a workshop entitled "Workers Organising in the Electronic Industry: Experiences from Indonesia and Malaysia" in Batam, Indonesia.
The two-day meeting focused on understanding and mapping the landscape of labour resistance in Asia in the past decade or so, with a special focus on identifying, in each country, (1) emerging forms of labour resistance, (2) emerging actors and players in new labour movements, and (3) trends in emerging alliance building and collaborative initiatives.
Since 2011, Myanmar has been one of the main countries to draw international attention. Before that year, international news coverage on the country was mostly related to oppression and political turmoil caused by military dictatorship. However, after 2011, the reasons were quite different. Several political and legal reforms brought by the civilian-led government, although backed by the military group, have made a drastic shift of international climate towards the country.
This meeting took place 6 months after the first researchers meeting and it was along with ATNC Annual conference in the Philippines in September 2010. Following the meeting earlier, the researchers investigated the financialisation process in two sectors namely automotive and electronics. And those findings were shared and discussed in the second meeting.
The meeting on CSR was held in Hong Kong in May 2010 to discuss and share the experiences amongst critical CSR practitioners and to learn from each other. This report from the meeting elaborates the critiques on CSR from participants’ experiences. Several issues were discussed in the meeting namely on the engagement of NGOs, role of state, consumers, and media in the CSR industry.
This meeting was facilitated by AMRC to bring together NGOs, trade unions and activists from 10 countries in Asia to discusses the significance and trend of capital mobility, covering the situation before and after the global financial crisis. The discussion exercises over arching issues of mobile capital in East Asia, including financialisation of the economy, global supply chains and trends in policy measures. The report tries to touch upon trends and patterns of capital flow in various sectors, its impact on workers, and the possible explanations.