All Research on Organising for Social Protection

This action research conducted by EILER examines how women in the informal sector in two urban communities in Manila make the most of available resources in order to rise above their seemingly disadvantaged situation within the economy. 

Jose Carlos Maningat
Ecumenical Institute for Labour Education and Research, Inc.
Philippines

Discussion Paper No. 1, December 2015

This report describes workers’ strategies of organising and collective bargaining in the informal sector in India. It discusses the organising experiences of the most marginalised workers in society – waste workers, sex workers, domestic workers, rural workers and kite making workers. These are people who were always on the margins of Indian polity and society due to their class, caste and gender.

Case Study of Cross Sector Alliance in Percut, Sei Tuan, Deli Serdang, North Sumatera Province

This study was conducted by Center for Trade Union and Human Rights (CTUHR) between December 7, 2012to March 2013. Personal interviews, focus group discussion and interview of key respondents through email were used to gather data.  Twelve worker-leaders from Agusan Plantation Inc. (API), Agumil (API Milling Plant), and Filipinas Palm Oil Plantation Inc. (FPPI) participated in the focus group discussions while five key informants were interviewed: three were conducted in person and two were done through emails.

Surat Thani is the largest of the southern provinces of Thailand, on the western shore of the 

In looking at Batam FTZ, Singaporeplays an important role in gaining the economic and political power over the region. The rapid development of the electronics industry and booming economic growth in late 1980s encouraged Singaporeto aggressively open up new production spaces and seek new supplies of cheap labour, land and water from its neighbour, Indonesia. The concept of the logic of territorial power applies here.

The chapter on SEZs in Indiaby Surendra Pratap focuses on two SEZs in Andhra Pradesh, the Kakinada SEZ of East Godavari District and the Brandix India Apparel City SEZ of Vishakhpattanam District. Kakinada SEZ is situated in the East Godavari District on the northeast coast of Andhra Pradesh. It is bordered on the north by Visakhapatnam District and the State of Orissa, on the east and south by the Bay of Bengaland on the west by Khammam and West Godavari Districts.

A study on BPO in the Philippines, by the Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research, Inc. (EILER), focuses on the development of a new variant of the zone which has emerged with the rapid development of information technology. As pointed in this chapter, a new generation of SEZ policies in the Philippineswere introduced in 1995 with the signing of the SEZ Act.

Referring to the four phases of the transformation of the zone, the third phase, the establishment of the SEZ in China, transformed the general understanding of the concept of an economic zone. The zone became a laboratory for economic and political change and explicitly political. The chapter on China SEZs  by Apo Leong and Surendra Pratap captures the development of the zone in Chinafrom its earliest days to the latest political developments in 2011.

The paper discusses the development of the zone in Malaysiaas the country pursues its ambition to become the regional hub for the economic growth. In 2007, Malaysiagovernment put into action its plan for the establishment of the economic corridors in five designated regions in Malaysia.

In 1998, AMRC published “We in The Zone” describing the working condition within EPZs in 10 countries, those are Taiwan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and China. In general the book describes the situation experienced by most of women workers working in EPZs.

Case study of organizing informal workers in Southeast Asia countries

Background

Under-represented voices of female workers