[asia-apec 61] Globalisation: its Impact and Challenges to Labor Migration, Part III

[daga]

Embargoed for Publication
(Final version and permission for use can be requested from the Asian
Migrant Centre <amc at hk.super.net> by 2 September 1996.)

GLOBALISATION: ITS IMPACT AND CHALLENGES TO LABOR MIGRATION, PART III

by May-an Villalba
Unlad-Kabayan Migrant Services Foundation, Inc.
Quezon City, Philippines


The combined high growth rates and high per capita income as well changes in
the labor structure in Japan and the NICs and lately Thailand and Malaysia,
have resulted in labor shortages in the industrial sectors of Asia. The
growing affluence of significant sectors of the population in developed
countries and NICs gave rise to a continued demand for women in
entertainment industry.   

These are the pull factors of migration in Asia.

Issues and problems

The integration of labor in Asia is bringing to the surface the gross
inequalities and contradictions between the workers of each country. The gap
in wage differentials, for example, is growing with manufacturing workers in
Japan earning an average of US$3,000 a month while those in Indonesia earn
US$60 per month and in the Philippines US$160.

	Unemployment

While unemployment is growing in the Philippines, Indonesia and in south
Asia, labor shortages are growing in certain sectors in Japan and the NICs.
The world's labor force is placed at 2.7 billion and an estimated 30% or 820
million of these mostly Asians were unemployed or underemployed in 1994. (WE
1995)

Technological advances in parts of Asia is also putting pressures on the job
market. More jobs are becoming redundant as technological changes enable
employers and industrialists to use automaton instead of human labor.
(shipping and transport)

	Labor standards

Unequal labor standards are being exposed more readily as a result of labor
integration. Wage differentials between the industrial and agricultural
countries for the same kind of work is growing. While working conditions
have improved in Japan and the NICs as a result of trade union activity,
those in the south are still largely backward. 

Migrant workers are hired in Japan and the NICs because they accept lower
wages and poor working conditions. And since they are often not unionized,
migrant workers often suffer the consequences of dangerous working conditions.

	Contract labor

In the highly competitive atmosphere of world trade, Japan and the NICs are
resorting to hiring of migrant workers to lower production costs. Contract
labor is becoming a lucrative business in itself apart from enabling small
and medium enterprises to survive in tough conditions.

In South countries, the trend of casualization and contractualization is
beginning to unsettle many trade unions. Financial and moral support to
local trade union organizing is diminishing and workers are encouraged to
form instead trade/workers associations as a defense to abusive labor
contracting practices.  

	Legal protection

In Japan and Korea migrant workers are systematically deprived of their
labor rights through the denial of work status to migrants. Migrant workers
are not allowed to legally enter Japan and Korea even though there is an
obvious need for cheap labor in some industries. The lack of legal rights
opens the way for massive exploitation and brutalization of migrant workers.
It provides excellent conditions for trafficking in women for the
entertainment sector (sex industry).

In other states, migrant workers are deprived of political and social
rights. In Singapore and Taiwan, migrant workers are forbidden to marry and
in Singapore women migrants are required to undergo pregnancy tests every
six months and are immediately deported if found positive. In other NICs,
the rights of migrant workers are severely curtailed.

	Trade unions

By and large, trade unions in Japan and the NICs have considered migrant
workers as a threat to their hard earned union victories. They are seen to
take jobs away from the local population. They are believed to cause
depreciating wages. They are seen to consume precious little social and
welfare resources which local workers have difficulty availing of by
themselves. But the fact is migrant workers mostly take unwanted jobs.

It is often the case that local trade unions oppose the importation of labor
and are not sympathetic to the migrants who often are victims of abuse. They
often refuse to take up the membership of foreign workers in the trade unions.

5. What can we do

At this juncture we must ask ourselves a few disconcerting questions: How do
we view globalisation? Are we trying to adapt to it to "survive", revise it
to suit our needs (whose needs?); put up a challenge; or resist the
compelling forces and processes of co-optation. 

For our response to be meaningful and useful, we must seriously address the
disintegration process that globalisation creates. If "benefits" outweigh
the costs", there is no justification that costs should be borne entirely by
who those who do not benefit. Having said that, I must confess, this does
not begin to give us a handle to address globalisation as it impinges on the
day to day life of those who do not benefit from it, but are constantly
victimised at every turn.

Because globalisation is constantly impinging on lives of people everyday
including our own life, we need to confront it collectively and as
individuals. As it impinges on migrant workers, we need to take stock of
ourselves, our work and where we stand.

It would do well to remind ourselves and  all sectors and forces who
challenge the globalising process of a few points to consider:
  
	With respect to governments

a- We must continue to remind governments of their responsibilities and
accountabilities; to provide full employment, job security and decent wages
to all its citizens. It is the inability of governments to do so that have
forced people to become migrant workers. 

b- We must continue push governments and international agencies for the full
protection to migrant workers in sending countries, in transit and in
countries of destination.

Policy on foreign labor among labor importing countries is generally
unfriendly. The theoretical faux pas of labor imports, the existence of
number of undocumented and irregular workers in many receiving countries
already condemns the anachronistic "nationalist" bias of many governments.
The truth is, large numbers of workers have been allowed to work and respond
to real labor needs but without official recognition. As a first step,
governments should legalize migrant workers who are already gainfully employed.

Where laws and employment contracts on migrant labor exist, they are either
inadequate or they work against the migrants, the weaker party in a
contract. Governments must immediately enact laws specifically relevant to
migrant workers. Where laws are absent, we must insist that a labor
ordinance be codified that define the status and rights of migrant workers
from the perspective of the migrant workers themselves. 
Labor unions and migrant workers organisations can help put pressure on the
government to see to it that laws are being carried out.

c- Bilateral agreements between labor sending and labor receiving countries
must be forged. Migrant workers welfare and protection must be central to
these agreements. Sending countries appear to evade the issue because of
fear of subsequent "costs" that both parties will be vulnerable to, and the
issue is not faced. Such agreements must not reflect the uneqwual power
balance that exists between employer and migrant worker.

All countries who claim to be civilised should recognise the legitimate
rights of migrant workers and their families by ratifying the 1990 UN
International Convention for the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant
Workers and Members of their Families signed in 1990. Immediately, the task
is to convince 14 more states to sign the Convention to enable its
ratification and its coming into force. It is ironic that no country in
Europe and North America who claim to be civilized has ever signed nor
ratified the Convention. 

	To migrant workers and support groups

Migrant workers must take stock of their own identities, be constantly
reminded of the causes of out-migration and resist becoming the bearers and
promoters of consumerism. We must inform and encourage them to turn their
"temporary" economic gains into long-term source of livelihood and job
generation in their own home countries.

	To other oppressed sectors of society

We must forge strong solidarity relations with every sector and significant
forces in society for a common front of resistance against forces that
compel us to become cogs and victims of the globalisation process.

We in the migrant front must continue to affirm that migration is
essentially a labor issue, therefore, labor unions and local workers are
possibly the most strategic ally of migrant workers.

a-To trade unions and workers associations:

trade unions have to recognize that labor is a central factor in production
anywhere. Labor is a constant factor in production which is employed
irrespective of nationality, creed, or gender. Labor is always at the
receiving end of exploitation and as such must be defended. Because the
exploitation of one worker is the exploitation of all workers.

It is the duty of every worker to struggle against the power of capital
ranged against the workers of every nationality. It is always the concern of
capital to produce profit often to the detriment of workers' conditions. It
behooves on workers to make capital accountable for its actions.

Workers must have a global perspective. It is suicidal for workers to
believe that their particular nation-state is sufficient to protect workers
rights. In fact, capital operates multinationally making use of weaknesses
between states to gain profit from cheap labor and resources everywhere.
There is no reason therefore for workers to stop struggling against capital
when the abuses are committed outside their countries. Because workers are
connected to each other by the bond of capital.

Labor unions should recognize the fact of the equality of labor. Whatever
nationality, workers will always have a commonality with other workers. They
should therefore treat all workers as sisters and brothers.

Trade unions must strive to strengthen the capability of nation-states to
protect the rights of workers. The attack of capital on nation-states
through liberalization, privatization, and structural adjustment programs is
an attack on the workers' capability to defend themselves. The workers must
push for states to continue to determine safe working conditions and fair
wages against the relentless demand of the free market to dictate prices and
labor rates.

Workers must push for more participation in the decision-making processes of
the workplace since these processes directly affect the well-being of the
workers. Labor participation must also be pushed for the workers in society.
They must participate in political affairs since it is through political
action that workers' benefits are broadly defended.

Finally workers must develop international solidarity and international
action to defend each other. They should work with a perspective of uniting
the workers and enabling the collective bargaining capability of workers
within enterprises across borders so that gaps in wages and working
conditions are ultimately evened out. When capital has operated
internationally since the colonial period, labor cannot limit itself only to
national affairs. 

b-To women movements

Women migration draws from a huge supply of labor in several rural countries
reflecting and reinforcing the traditional Asian values which regard women
as sex objects and home keepers. This sustains the male dominated cultures
of our societies. (Villalba)

Women's organizations and movements must continue to expose and criticize
the feminization of poverty, labor and labor migration as a manifestation of
the historical economic exploitation and oppression of South countries and
of women and of the unfair and unjust division of labor by gender and
between have and have not countries. 
It should condemn the sex trade involving women and children who are
trafficked and are illegally employed or are employed under various guises.
The sex services dehumanizes both  men and the women who are forced by
poverty to become prostitutes. 

The condition of women domestic workers is also intolerable because it
promotes modern day slavery. It forces women to work where they cannot have
human dignity. Salaries that women receive are not equivalent to the
dehumanization that they receive in return. (Villalba) 

6. Generate jobs in poor countries

As already pointed out by various international agencies, the main issue in
so-called "develeoping countries" is poverty and it can be addressed only if
there is a definitive answer to the Third World debt problem, the problem of
unequal and unfair terms of trade and the more just distribution of
environmental resources.

The long term solution to the problem is not in blind globalisation but in
the establishment of fair trade and investment rules that enable poor
countries to maximize their resources and enable the development of their
local market first. By developing on their own and providing jobs to their
own people, the push factors are minimized and the problem of labor
migration is solved at the root source.

Globalisation can be a long term viable reality if development is promoted
with the participation of and with benefits accruing to the working masses
in the South.

References:
  
___________________. World Employment 1995, An ILO Report. ILO. Geneva. 1995

___________________. Going Out to Work: Trade Unions and Migrant Workers.
ILO. Geneva. March 1996     

Easton, Stewart. Ancient, Medieval and Modern History. Barnes and Noble. New
York. 1967.

Latourette, Kenneth Scott. A Short History of the Far East. Macmillan. New
York. 1967.

Papazian, Aline. Situation of Migrants in the Middle East. Paper read at the
IMRWC Meeting. Cairo Sept. 1994.

Taran, Patrick. Global Migration: Challenges to NGOs. Asian Migrant Forum.
Asian Migrant  Centre. Hong Kong. 1994.

Villalba, May-an. Understanding Asian Women in Migration: Towards a
Theoretical Framework. Women in Action. Issues 2 & 3, 1993. ISIS
International. Quezon City. Philippines.

Villalba, May-an, ed. Living and Working with Migrant Workers: Report of the
Conference on Migrant Labor Issues. Asian Migrant Centre. Hong Kong. 1995.

Villalba, May-an. The Economics of Labour Migration in Asia. Paper presented
to the Ecumenical Consultation on Uprooted People. Addis Ababa, November 1995.

Villalba, Noel. Ed. Building Workers Unity in the New Super States.
Documentation for Action Groups in Asia (DAGA). Hong Kong, 1992. Quotes from
World Investment Report. United Nations 1991. NewYork.


Asian Migrant Centre (AMC)
4 Jordan Road
Kowloon, Hong Kong
Tel: (852) 2312 0031 Fax: (852) 2992 0111
Email: amc at hk.super.net