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ATNC 2005 Part 4 ASIAN TNC MONITORING NETWORK BOOK SERIES A s i a n T Asian Transnational r a n s n a Corporation Outlook 2004: t i o n a l C Asian TNCs, workers, o r p o r a t and movement of capital i o the n O u t l o o k 2 0 0 4 Asia Monitor Resource Centre Unit 4, Floor 18 Hollywood Centre 233 Hollywood Road Sheung Wan Hong Kong Tel (852) 2332 1346 Fax: (852) 2385 5319 Email: [email protected] URL: http://www.amrc.org.hk Asia Monitor Resource Centre ASIAN TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATION OUTLOOK 2004 ASIAN TNCS, WORKERS, AND THE MOVEMENT OF CAPITAL Asia Monitor Resource Centre i ASIA MONITOR RESOURCE CENTRE The Asia Monitor Resource Centre (AMRC) is an independent non- governmental organisation which focuses on labour concerns in the Asia Pacific region. The centre provides information, research, publishing, training, labour networking, and related services to trade unions, labour groups, and other development NGOs in the region. The centre’s main goal is to support democratic and independent labour movements in the Asia Pacific region. In order to achieve this goal, AMRC upholds the principles of workers’ empowerment and gender consciousness and follows a participatory framework. ASIAN TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATION OUTLOOK 2004: ASIAN TNCS, WORKERS, AND THE MOVEMENT OF CAPITAL Published by Asia Monitor Resource Centre March 2005 Copyright © Asia Monitor Resource Centre Ltd, 2005 All rights reserved Articles may be reproduced in any non-profit publications; credit is requested. ISBN 962 7145 22X Editorial Team Chang Dae-oup and Ed Shepherd For more information contact Asia Monitor Resource Centre Unit 4, Floor 18 Hollywood Centre 233 Hollywood Road Sheung Wan Hong Kong Tel (852) 2332 1346 Fax (852) 2385 5319 URL http://www.amrc.org.hk ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Part 1: Trend and Nature of Asian Foreign Investment 1 1. Asian TNCs, workers, and the movement of capital - Dae- oup Chang .......................................................................................... 3 2. Japan’s recent foreign direct investment: specifically in the manufacturing sector in Asia - Kaneko Fumio ........................ 33 3. The present condition and characteristics of Korea’s foreign investment - Yoon Hyowon .......................................................... 45 4. FDI inwards and outwards: Taiwan - Ching-Jen Labor Health & Safety Service Center ..................................................... 67 5. The role of Hong Kong capital in globalised capitalism - Monina Wong .................................................................................... 85 Part 2: FDI and Labour in Asian Countries ...................... 105 6. FDI and Labour in China: The actors and possibility of a new working class activism - Dae-oup Chang and Monina Wong .................................................................................................... 107 7. FDI trends and Labour in India - Krishna Shekhar Lal Das 155 8. Attracting FDI through the spread of Free Trade Agreements: Unravelling the rationale and impact on labour conditions in ASEAN - Dennis Arnold ........................................... 177 Part 3: Workers in and against Asian TNCs ...................... 223 9. A preliminary study on the gender struggle of women workers in factories in the Philippines’ Cavite Economic Zone - Workers Assistance Center Inc ........................................... 225 10. Korean foreign direct investment: Its tendency and treatment towards workers in Indonesia - Sedane Institute for Labour Information (LIPS) and Wahyu Sosial Foundation (YAWAS) ............................................................................................. 263 11. The situation of Burmese migrant workers in Mae Sot, Thailand - Dennis Arnold ............................................................... 287 12. Response of the Korean Government to Korean companies abroad - Serapina Cha Mi-kyung ........................... 331 13. International solidarity against runaway factories: On labour’s tri-continental linkage in the Tainan Enterprises campaign - Ching-Jen Labor Health & Safety Service Center 355 About the authors ............................................................................ 369 iii iv PREFACE Dae-oup Chang Since 2002, the Asian Transnational Corporations Monitoring Network has been working to build up a regional network through which labour organisations in different Asian countries can pursue concrete solidarity actions to improve working conditions in Asian Transnational Corporations (ATNC). During 2004, all organisations in the network had many opportunities to join together in various training and education programmes, campaigns, research, and pub- lications projects to promote labour rights and publicise the issues of labour under the ATNCs. As the project is implemented by a net- work that consists now of 16 organisations with different speciali- ties, we were able to cover many different issues, such as automo- bile and garment industries, women workers, as well as different aspects of monitoring activities, including research, campaigning, education, organising, and publications. Two books in the ATNC Book Series were published by the Asia Monitor Resource Centre (AMRC) editing team, ATNC network researchers, and guest researchers, whose expertise is in the field of research of the network, dealing with the auto industry in Asia and a critical understanding of corpo- rate codes of conduct. Partner organisations continued to publish their research results on the ATNC web site. Training and education workshops have been organised, focusing on a specific aspect of capacity that is needed to monitor labour conditions and assist organising attempts of workers in ATNCs. Training for campaigners in January 2004 provided the nec- essary skills for organising campaigns, including company investiga- tion, publicity, grassroots organising of workers in firms with labour disputes, international networking, and web-based campaign skills. Another training course, focusing on the better understanding of women v workers’ rights in the context of the growing globalisation of supply chains was held in June 2004 by organising a workshop with workers from Asian-invested garment and leather producing firms in the mid- Java area of Indonesia. In all major events, ATNC partners in differ- ent countries also played a role in bringing other labour organisations into the network’s activities, expanding the basis of the ATNC net- work in each country. Through our three years of experience in building a network, we have engaged with workers, campaigners, unionists, and re- searchers in various fields and countries. One major lesson we’ve learned is that a sustainable way of regulating TNCs in defence of workers’ basic rights can be achieved only with the empower- ment of workers in workplaces and workers’ communities. Ac- cordingly, the concept of ‘monitoring’ has been widened, from mere ‘watching’ to a more comprehensive one incorporating research, education and training, campaigning, and publications. This move is based on our understanding that existing ‘external’ monitoring activity does not necessarily lead to general improvement of la- bour rights; we need to organise pressure from and within the workplaces. We also realised that we needed to widen contact with workers and grassroots organisations through various programmes that are designed to assist worker organising. Our emphasis on the workers organising themselves to defend their rights at work and communi- ties have been reflected well through our involvement in the global labour campaign, in particular ‘the Play Fair at the Olympics Cam- paign’, through which we developed new relations with global cam- paigning groups in Asia and Europe as well as a partnership with a grassroots workers’ organisation. Our involvement in campaigning and advocacy is related closely to the major motivation in establishing the ATNC network: to com- pensate for the limits of the current forms of external solidarity driven by the consumer movement, in which the development of a work- ers’ movement was increasingly dependent on external pressure on the basis of corporate codes of conduct while local organising initia- tives took second priority. vi In the Olympics campaign, we suggested ‘triangle solidarity’ as a method to leap forward by maximising workers’ involvement. The ultimate aim of triangle solidarity is not merely putting the workers in the centre of the existing campaign mechanism, but changing the campaign mechanism into a new one in which workers organising themselves in workplaces and communities naturally turns into a solidarity campaign with regional and international impact, not aim- ing at ‘manufacturing’ solidarity but encouraging solidarity to come out of the desperate need to work together with others who face the same obstacles. However, involvement in the Olympics campaign in 2004, which had only limited impact on local organising because it was not firmly based on local labour activism, made us realise the urgent necessity of building a regional support network based more on local organising efforts. The phase out of the Multifibre Arrangement and the disunited reaction from many labour unions with arguments based on national interests rather than worker interests alerted us to the importance of building a firm network of labour groups. In the ATNC Monitoring Network’s annual conference in August 2004 and a post-Olympics evaluation among the network members, many reflections regard- ing the ATNC network’s role in a
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