Globalization, Flexibilization and Working Conditions in Asia and the Pacific

Sangheon Lee, Francois Eyraud

• Publisher: Chandos Publishing
• Year: 2008
• Print ISBN:
  9781843343301
• eBook ISBN:
  9781780632476
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

This book represents a unique study which reviews employment conditions in Asia and the Pacific in the context of globalization and increasing pressure towards flexibilization. It places a strong focus on the diverging experiences of individual workers in their employment conditions such as employment status, wages/incomes, working time, work organizations and health and safety. Along with thematic studies concerning the roles of workers voice and labour regulation in determining employment conditions, this book includes nine country studies which have been undertaken based on a common research framework for a more rigorous comparison in the region. - A systematic review of employment conditions in the countries which are carefully selected in the region - National-level analysis based on a common research framework - A highly analytical and timely analysis of workers voice and labour regulation with respect to employment conditions

Part 1

Labour Market Changes, Workers’ Voice And Labour Regulation

1

Globalization, institutional reforms and workers: changes and outcomes

Sangheon Lee; François Eyraud

1 Introduction

The ‘conventional’ wisdom in employment and labour policies can be summarized as the positive employment impacts of globalization, the need for flexibilization and deregulation to reap the benefits of globalization, and the strengthening of market principles in the operation of the labour market. Such wisdom has been widely applied to many parts of the world, especially Latin American countries and transition countries in Europe (OECD, 1994; Edwards and Lustig, 1997; IMF, 2003; World Bank, 2004; Heckman and Pagés, 2004).

In Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, for instance, which have witnessed considerable increases in temporary and casual employment along with high inequality and high unemployment, the recommended list of key policy measures includes ‘liberalizing employment protection regulations for permanent workers’, ‘reducing taxes on labour’ and ‘deregulating industrial relations and wage determination’ (Rutkowski and Scarpetta, 2005). Recently, the European social model has also been faced with similar challenges, as demonstrated by the debates on the future of labour laws in Europe (see the 2006 European Commission White Paper on ‘Modernizing labour law to meet the challenges of the 21st century’).

The countries in Asia and the Pacific, which have been praised for their flexibility and recommended as examples of best practice for other countries to follow, are not an exception to these pressures (ADB, 2005a; UNESCAP, 2006; Burgess and Connell, 2006). Many countries have been under pressure to follow this wisdom, particularly since the financial crisis in the late 1990s. The experience is quite similar among the ‘South Tigers’ (Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand). Such policy changes may have been felt more strongly in industrialized countries in the region such as Australia, Japan and the Republic of Korea, where labour markets were much more regulated. In even more ‘regulated’ countries such as China and Viet Nam, the wisdom has been accepted as a way of making the transition to the market economy.

Given that these changes must, by definition, have had tremendous effects on individual workers, however, little is known about the changes that individual workers have experienced in the context of globalization, flexibilization and deregulation, although research efforts have intensified in industrialized countries in the region in recent years. This is also an unfortunate omission in that the usefulness and reliability of the ‘conventional’ wisdom needs to be judged by its impact on the well- being of workers. This project volume presents our collective effort to fill these knowledge gaps.

This chapter is intended to review major trends in employment conditions and introduce related issues and debates, thereby putting the thematic and national studies of this volume into a global and regional perspective. A similar attempt has already been made in our previous work (Lee and Wood, 2006), which has served as a background paper for this project volume. This chapter provides an updated review of developments in employment conditions in Asia and the Pacific. The countries under consideration in this project include three industrialized countries (Australia, Japan and the Republic of Korea), two transition economies (China and Viet Nam) and four South Tigers (Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand and, to a lesser degree, Malaysia).

The rest of the chapter is organized as follows: following a brief review of recent developments in the labour markets of the region in section 2, three subsequent sections will describe and analyse the three key dimensions of employment conditions: employment relationship (labour contracts) in section 3, wages and income in section 4 and working time in section 5. In section 6 we will complete the analysis of the employment conditions by considering how workers perceived the quality of the ‘new’ jobs in these increasingly deregulated labour markets. Section 7 will consider the political debate around the following questions. Is deregulation necessary for globalization? Is flexicurity a policy response to promote and respond to globalization? Finally, section 8 outlines further research issues linked to employment conditions in the region.

2 Recent...

Table of contents

• Cover image
• Title page
• Table of Contents
• Copyright page
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• About the contributors
• Part 1: Labour Market Changes, Workers’ Voice And Labour Regulation
• Part 2: Flexibilization and Non-Standard Employment
• Part 3: Economic Pressures and the Changing Quality of Work
• Part 4: Transition and Employment Conditions
• References
• Index