Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T00:38:28.585Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Communism, Cold War and Commodity Chains: Southeast Asian Labor History in a Comparative and Transnational Perspective

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 June 2020

Ulbe Bosma
Ulbe Bosma*
Affiliation:
International Institute of Social History Amsterdam and VU University Amsterdam
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The geographical term “Southeast Asia” dates from the 1930s, and came to denote a topic for academic studies in the early days of the Cold War. As such, it includes Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Indochina, Thailand, Myanmar, Malaysia, Brunei, and the Philippines. Southeast Asia has become thoroughly incorporated in the global economy over the past 150 years; first, as a producer of commodities, and later, as a supplier of cheap garments and electronic components. Under Dutch colonialism and British hegemony—the latter established by the conquest of Burma and the imposition of free trade on Siam and the Philippines in the 1850s—Southeast Asia was turned into a key provider of commodities for the industrializing countries. During high colonialism, from 1870 to 1930, the region became increasingly intertwined, via Singapore as the central port and through the role of mainland Southeast Asia as the rice basket for the plantations of maritime Southeast Asia. After the Second World War, the region was the world's most violent frontier of containment for communist expansion. In recent decades, Southeast Asia has become integrated in global commodity chains as a producer of cheap industrial goods, often as a subcontractor for more advanced economies, such as those of Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, and later on, Southeast China.

Type
State of the Field
Information
International Labor and Working-Class History , Volume 97: Changing Labor Relations in the Ottoman Empire and Turkey / Oral History and Indian Labor History , Spring 2020 , pp. 159 - 179
Copyright
Copyright © International Labor and Working-Class History, Inc., 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1. For a discussion of the term “Southeast Asia,” see Berger, Mark T., “Decolonisation, Modernisation and Nation-Building: Political Development Theory and the Appeal of Communism in Southeast Asia, 1945–1975,” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 34 (2003): 421–48, here, 423CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2. The Philippines ratified the convention on December 29, 1953, Indonesia on June 9, 1998, and Cambodia on August 23, 1999. http://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_INSTRUMENT_ID:312232 (consulted on May 22, 2018).

3. This convention was ratified by the Philippines on December 29, 1953, by Indonesia on July 15, 1957, by Malaysia on June 5, 1961, by Singapore on October 25, 1965, and by Cambodia on August 23, 1999. Brunei, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam have not yet signed. https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_INSTRUMENT_ID:312243 (consulted on May 22, 2018).

4. Eviota, Elizabeth Uy, The Political Economy of Gender. Women and the Sexual Division of Labour in the Philippines (London, 1992), 69Google Scholar; Mohamad, Maznah, The Malay Handloom Weavers: a Study of the Rise and Decline of Traditional Manufacture (Singapore, 1996)Google Scholar; van Nederveen Meerkerk, Elise, “Challenging the de-industrialization thesis: gender and indigenous textile production in Java under Dutch colonial rule, c. 1830–1920,” Economic History Review 7 (2017): 2019–1243Google Scholar; Irene Nørlund, “Textile Production in Vietnam 1880-1940: Handicraft and Industry in a Colonial Economy” (PhD diss., Copenhagen University, 1994), 190–203.

5. Keck, Margaret E. and Sikkink, Kathryn, Activists beyond Borders. Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, NY, and London, 1998)Google Scholar.

6. Amarjit Kaur, Wage Labour in Southeast Asia Since the 1840's: Globalisation, the International Division of Labour and Labour Transformations (Basingstoke [etc.], 2004), 29, 34, 134.

7. Jomo, K. S. and Todd, Patricia, Trade Unions and the State in Peninsular Malaysia. (Kuala Lumpur, 1994), 20Google Scholar.

8. See Lees, Lynn Hollen, “International Management in a Free-Standing Company: The Penang Sugar Estates, Ltd., and the Malayan Sugar Industry, 1851–1914,” The Business History Review 81 (2007): 27–57, here, 47, 49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9. Ramos, Elias T., Philippine Labor Movement in Transition (Quezon City, 1976), 15Google Scholar.

10. Virginia Thompson, Virginia, and Wilfrid Benson, Labor Problems in Southeast Asia. With a preface by W. Benson (New Haven, CT [etc.], 1947), 103.

11. Thompson, Labor Problems in Southeast Asia, 239.

12. Bosma, Ulbe, The Making of a Periphery. How Island Southeast Asia Became a Mass Exporter of Labor (New York, 2019), 155CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13. Clark, Victor S., Labor Conditions in the Philippines – Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor (Washington DC, 1905), 721–905Google Scholar, here 842–46. See also Carroll, John J., “Philippine Labor Unions,” Philippine Studies 9 (1961): 220–54, here, 225Google Scholar.

14. Richardson, Jim, Komunista. The Genesis of the Philippine Communist Party, 1902-1935 (Quezon City, 2011), 14–16, 18Google Scholar.

15. Bosma, The Making of a Periphery, 155.

16. Ramos, Philippine Labor Movement, 19.

17. Bosma, Ulbe, Karel Zaalberg. Journalist en strijder voor de Indo (Leiden, 1997), 147–51Google Scholar.

18. For the membership figures, see Ingleson, John, In Search of Justice. Workers and Unions in Colonial Java, 1908–1926 (Oxford, 1986), 160, 231Google Scholar.

19. Stenson, M. R., Industrial Conflict in Malaya. Prelude to the Communist Revolt of 1948 (London, etc., 1970), 9Google Scholar.

20. Gamba, Charles, “Labour and Labour Parties in Malaya,” Pacific Affairs, 31 (1958): 117–30, here, 119CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21. Beresford, Melanie and Nyland, Chris, “The Labour Movement of Vietnam,” Labour History, 75 (1998), 57–80, here, 60CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Trân, Angie Ngoc, Ties That Bind; Cultural Identity, Class, and Law in Vietnam's Labor Resistance (Ithaca, NY, 2018), 26–27Google Scholar.

22. Thompson, Labor Problems, 52.

23. Piraphol Tritasavit, “Labor Policy and Practices in Thailand: A Study of Government Policy on Labor Relations, 1932–1976,” (PhD diss., New York University, 1976), 66.

24. Tritasavit, “Labor Policy,” 88, 146.

25. Poeze, Harry A., Tan Malaka. Levensloop van 1897 to 1945 (The Hague, 1987), 258Google Scholar; Richardson, “Komunistas,” 80; Carroll, “Philippine Labor Unions,” 229.

26. For fingerprint registration in Java, see for example Ingleson, John, “Labour Unions and the Provision of Social Security in Colonial Java,” Asian Studies Review, 24 (2000): 471–500CrossRefGoogle Scholar, here, 478; For the fingerprint registration in Sumatrasee National Archive, Deli Maatschappij, inv. no. 344, “Dactyloscopisch Bureau der D.V en A.V.R.O.S 1925–1950,” 3.

27. Ingleson, “Labour Unions,” 471, 490; Ingleson, John, Workers, Unions and Politics. Indonesia in the 1920s and 1930s. (Leiden/Boston, 2014), 271CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28. Ingleson, “Labour Unions,” 495.

29. Carroll, “Philippine Labor Unions,” 231.

30. Richardson, “Komunistas,” 92–93.

31. Doeppers, Daniel F., “Metropolitan Manila in the Great Depression: Crisis for Whom?” The Journal of Asian Studies 50 (1991): 511–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32. Wurfel, David, “Trade Union Development and Labor Relations Policy in the Philippines,” ILR Review 12 (1959): 582–608, here, 586CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33. Ramos, Elias T., “Labor Conflict and Recent Trends in Philippine Industrial Relations,” Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society 15 (1987): 173–97Google Scholar; Carroll, “Philippine Labor Unions,” 234.

34. Wurfl, David, “Trade Union Development and Labor Relations Policy in the Philippines,” ILR Review 12 (1959): 582–608, here, 584CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Carroll, “Philippine Labor Unions,” 237; Ramos, Philippine Labor Movement, 8, 59.

35. Trân, Ties that Bind, 39.

36. See Brocheux, Pierre, “L'implantation du mouvement communiste en Indochine française: le cas du Nghe-Tinh (1930–1931),” Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine 24 (1977): 49–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Brocheux, Pierre, “Le prolétariat des plantations d'hévéas au Vietnam méridional: aspects sociaux et politiques (1927–1937),” Le Mouvement social, 90 (1975): 55–86, here, 79–80Google Scholar; Del Testa, David, “Vietnamese railway workers during the revolutionary high tide,” South East Asia Research 19 (2011), 787–816CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Del Testa, David W., “Workers, Culture, and the Railroads in French Colonial Indochina, 1905–1936,” French Colonial History, 2, Colonial French Encounters: New World, Africa, Indochina (2002): 181–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37. Stenson, , Industrial Conflict in Malaya. Prelude to the Communist Revolt of 1948 (London, 1970), 8–9Google Scholar.

38. Ariffin, “Women and Trade Unions,” 84; Stenson, Industrial Conflict in Malaya, 14–15.

39. Jomo and Todd, Trade Unions, 74, 77.

40. Fong, Leong Yee, “Labour Laws and the Development of Trade Unionism in Peninsular Malaysia, 1945–1960,” Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 69 (1996): 23–38, here, 27–28Google Scholar.

41. Fong, Leong Yee, “The Impact of the Cold War on the Development of Trade Unionism in Malaya (1948–57),” Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 23 (1992): 60–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

42. Dalley, F. W., “The Prospect for Asian Trade Unionism,” Pacific Affairs, 24 (1951): 296–306, here, 296, 305Google Scholar; Leong Yee Fong, ‘The Impact of the Cold War,” 67–68.

43. Beresford and Nyland, “The Labour Movement of Vietnam,” 61–62.

44. Jomo and Todd, Trade Unions, 22–23; Dalley, “The Prospect for Asian Trade Unionism,” 301; Leong Yee Fong, ‘The Impact of the Cold War,” 71; J. Norman Parmer, “Trade Unions in Malaya,” The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 310, Current Issues in International Labor Relations (1957): 142–50, here, 143–44.

45. Ariffin, ‘Women and Trade Unions,” 86; Jomo and Todd, Trade Unions, 43.

46. Jomo and Todd, Trade Unions, 54.

47. Jomo and Todd, Trade Unions, 151.

48. Carroll, “Philippine Labor Unions,” 238.

49. Carroll, “Philippine Labor Unions,” 243.

50. Wurfel, “Trade Union Development,” 582, 592–93, 605.

51. Ramos, Elias T., “Growth of Collective Bargaining in the Philippines, 1953–74,” Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 14 (1979): 559–68, here, 560Google Scholar.

52. Ramos, “Labor Conflict,” 180.

53. Bosma, Ulbe, The Sugar Plantation in India and Indonesia. Industrial Production 1770–2010. (Cambridge, 2013), 223–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar; See also Brown, Colin, “The Politics of Trade Union Formation in the Java Sugar Industry, 1945–1949,” Modern Asian Studies 28 (1994): 77–98CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

54. Ford, Workers and Intellectuals, 25; SOBSI itself claimed a membership of two and a half to three million in the late 1950s, but this figure has been contested. See Hindley, Donald, The Communist Party of Indonesia, 1951–1963 (Berkeley, 1964), 135Google Scholar.

55. Kerkvliet, “Workers’ Protests,” 175; Tran, Ties that Bind, 71.

56. Beresford and Nyland, “The Labour Movement of Vietnam,” 68; Chan, Anita and Norlund, Irene, “Vietnamese and Chinese Labour Regimes: On the Road to Divergence,” The China Journal 40 (1998): 173–97, here, 174–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57. For the Vietnamese case, see Beresford and Nyland, “The Labour Movement of Vietnam,” 63, 65, 66.

58. Parmer, “Trade Unions in Malaya,” 148.

59. Leggett, Chris, “Trade unions in Singapore. Corporate paternalism,” in Trade Unions in Asia. An economic and sociological analysis (New York, 2008), 108, 111Google Scholar.

60. Gamba, “Labour and Labour Parties in Malaya,” 125.

61. Berger, “Decolonisation,” 433.

62. Crinis, in Crinis and Vickers, Labour in the Clothing Industry, 26.

63. Ford, Workers and Intellectuals, 53.

64. See Christie, Kenneth, “Illiberal Democracy, Modernisation and Southeast Asia,” Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory 91 (1998): 102–18Google Scholar.

65. Ford, Workers and Intellectuals, 35.

66. Andrew Brown, Bundit Thonachaisetavut, and Kevin Hewison, “Labour Relations and Regulation in Thailand: Theory and Practice,” Southeast Asia Research Centre, Working Papers Series No. 27. (City University of Hong Kong, 2002), 6.

67. Ong, Spirits of Resistance, 144–45, 148; Jomo and Todd, Trade Unions, 153.

68. McKay, Steven C., “The Squeaky Wheel's Dilemma: New Forms of Labor Organizing in the Philippines,” Labor Studies Journal 30 (2006), 46–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ramos, “Labor Conflict,” 188.

69. See McKay, Steven C., “Hard Drives and Glass Ceilings: Gender Stratification in High-Tech Production,” Gender and Society 20 (2006): 207–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

70. Jomo and Todd, Trade Unions, 30; Ariffin, Rohana, “Women and Trade Unions in West Malaysia,” Journal of Contemporary Asia 19 (1989): 78–94, here, 81CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

71. Ong, Spirits of Resistance, 153; See also Celia Mather, “Industrialisation in the Tangerang Regency of West Java: Women Workers and the Islamic Patriarchy” (Working Paper, University of Amsterdam, 1982).

72. See McKay, “Hard Drives and Glass Ceilings,” 207–235; See also Wolf, Diane Lauren, Factory Daughters: Gender, Household Dynamics, and Rural Industrialization in Java (Berkeley, 1992), 178Google Scholar.

73. See Pansapa, Textures of Struggle.

74. Ford, Michele, “Continuity and Change in Indonesian Labour Relations in the Habibie Interregnum,” Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science 28 (2000): 59–88, here, 68, 70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Silvey, Rachel, “Gender Geographies of Activism: Motherhood, Migration, and Labour Protest in West Java, Indonesia,” Asian Journal of Social Science 31 (2003): 340–63, here, 349, 355CrossRefGoogle Scholar; See Rebecca Elmhirst, “Labour Politics in Migrant Communities.”

75. Neureiter, “Organized Labor,” 1079.

76. Ford, Workers and Intellectuals, 75.

77. Ford, “Continuity and Change,” 73.

78. See Neureiter, Michael, “Organized Labor and Democratization in Southeast Asia,” Asian Survey 53 (2013): 1063–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

79. See Ramos, Elias T., “Labour Policy Change and Its Impact on Trade Union Roles in Singapore and the Philippines: A Comparative Study,” Indian Journal of Industrial Relations 19 (1984): 331–46Google Scholar.

80. According to the ILO in 1997, union density among wage workers was 3.4 percent in Indonesia, 38.2 percent in the Philippines, 13.4 percent in Malaysia, and 4.2 percent in Thailand. In Thailand, union density was just 2.6 percent in private enterprise and 60.94 percent in the government sector. Charoenloet, Voravidh, Ativanichayapong, Napaporn, and Wanabriboon, Pan, The Impact of Trade Union Solidarity Support Organisations in Thailand 1993–2002 (Bangkok Chulalongkorn University Political Economy Study Center, 2004), 9Google Scholar. The report was kindly made available to the author by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Foundation.

81. Neureiter, “Organized Labor,” 1074–76. According to the study by Charoenloet, Ativanichayapong, and Wanabriboon (The Impact of Trade Union Solidarity, 27), the Thai labor movement stood isolated from other social actors and was itself in need of outside help rather than being able to play a vanguard role.

82. Neureiter, “Organized Labor,” 1074–76.

83. Brown et al., “Working Paper,” 5; Pangsapa, Piya, Textures of Struggle. The Emergence of Resistance among Garment Workers in Thailand (Ithaca, NY, 2007), 27, 31Google Scholar; Yukongdi, Vimolwan, “Trade unions in Thailand: declining strength and influence,” in Trade Unions in Asia. An economic an sociological analysis, ed. Benson, John and Zhu, Ying (New York, 2008), 216–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

84. See Pansapa, Textures of Struggle, chapter 2, 80–129.

85. Pansapa, Textures of Struggle, 31, 126, 131, 148, 151.

86. Crinis and Tran (in Crinis and Vickers), 91; Ford, “Continuity and Change,” 77; Charoenloet, Ativanichayapong, and Wanabriboon, The Impact of Trade Union Solidarity, 20.

87. See Ford, Michele, “Learning by doing: trade unions and electoral politics in Batam, Indonesia, 2004–2009,” South East Asia Research 22 (2014): 341–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vedi R. Hadiz, “The Indonesian Labour Movement: Resurgent or Constrained?” Southeast Asian Affairs (2002): 130–42.

88. McKay, “The Squeaky Wheel's Dilemma,” 41–63, here, 44.

89. McKay, “The Squeaky Wheel's Dilemma,” 53–54.

90. Ford, Michele, Workers and Intellectuals: NGOs, Trade Unions and the Indonesian Labour Movement (Leiden, 2009), 4–6Google Scholar.

91. D. O'Rourke and G. Brown, “2000, Beginning to Just Do It: Current Workplace and Environmental Conditions at the Tae Kwang Vina Nike Shoe Factory in Vietnam,” November 8, 2000, online at: http://web.mit.edu/dorourke/www/PDF/Beginning.pdf/ (consulted on May 24, 2018).

92. Isaaac, Joe and Sitalaksmi, Sari, “Trade unions in Indonesia. From state incorporation to market orientation,” in Trade Unions in Asia. An economic an sociological analysis, ed. Benson, John and Zhu, Ying (New York, 2008), 236–255Google Scholar; Ford, “Continuity and Change,” 71.

93. See Torm, Nina, “The Role of Trade Unions in Vietnam: A Case Study of Small and Medium Enterprises,” Journal of International Development 26 (2014): 207–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

94. Chan and Norlund, “Vietnamese and Chinese Labour Regimes,” 178–79.

95. Trần, Angie Ngọc, “Through the Eye of the Needle: Vietnamese Textile and Garment Industries Rejoining the Global Economy,” Crossroads: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 10 (1996): 91Google Scholar.

96. Ngọc Trần, “Through the Eye of the Needle,” 83–126, here, 84.

97. Gereffi, Gary, “The Organization of Buyer-Driven Global Commodity Chains: How U.S. Retailers Shape Overseas Production Networks,” in Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism, ed. Gereffi, Gary and Korzeniewicz, Miguel (Westport, CT, and London, 1994), 95–121Google Scholar.

98. Kerkvliet, “Workers’ Protests,” 168–69.

99. Wang, “Asian Transnational Corporations,” 50.

100. Kerkvliet, Benedict J. Tria, “Workers' Protests in Contemporary Vietnam (with Some Comparisons to Those in the Pre-1975 South),” Journal of Vietnamese Studies 5 (2010): 162–204, here, 162–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

101. Kerkvliet, “Workers’ Protests,” 177.

102. Ngoc Tran, “Alternatives,” 436.

103. Kerkvliet, ‘Workers’ Protests,” 166; also, see Tran, “Alternatives.”

104. Nuon, Veasna and Serrano, Melisa, Building Unions in Cambodia. History, Challenges, Strategies (Singapore, 2010), 18, 71, 80Google Scholar, http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/bueros/singapur/07907.pdf (consulted on May 24, 2018).

105. Nuon and Serrano, Building Unions, 50–51.

106. See Kheang Un, “Cambodia in 2012: Towards Developmental Authoritarianism?” Southeast Asian Affairs (2013): 73–86; ILO, Cambodian Garment and Footwear Sector Bulletin, Issue 4, August 2016, http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---asia/---ro-bangkok/documents/publication/wcms_517535.pdf (consulted on May 24, 2018); Gillian Kane, “Facts on Cambodia's Garment Industry, Cambodia Factsheet 1, Clean Clothes Campaign,” https://cleanclothes.org/resources/publications/factsheets/cambodia-factsheet-february-2015.pdf.

107. Arnold, Dennis and Pickles, John, “Global Work, Surplus Labor, and the Precarious Economies of the Border,” Antipode 43 (2011): 1598–624CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

108. Crinis, Vicki and Tran, Angie Ngoc, “Migrant workers in the clothing industry: networking in Christian spaces.” in Labour in the Clothing Industry in the Asia Pacific, ed. Crinis, Vicki and Vickers, Adrian, (London and New York, 2017), 80–96Google Scholar.

109. Arnold and Hewison, “Exploitation global supply chains,” 184.

110. Arnold and Pickles, “Global Work,” 1608, 1610.

111. See Thongyou, Maniemai and Ayuwat, Dusadee, “Lao migrant workers in Thailand,” in Transnational Migration and Work in Asia, ed. Hewison, Kevin and Young, Ken (London and New York, 2006), 57–74Google Scholar.

112. Arnold and Pickles, “Global Work,” 1613; Pollock, Jackie and Aung, Soe Lin, “Critical times: gendered implications of the economic crisis for migrant workers from Burma/Myanmar in Thailand,” Gender & Development 18 (2010): 213–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Arnold, and Hewison, , “Exploitation in global supply chains. Burmese migrant workers in Mae Sot,” in Transnational Migration and Work in Asia, ed. Hewison, Kevin and Young, Ken (London and New York, 2006). 165–90Google Scholar.

113. See Campbell, Stephen, “Cross-ethnic Labour Solidarities among Myanmar Workers in Thailand,” Sojourn: Journal of Social Issues in Southeast Asia 27 (2012): 260–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

114. Arnold and Pickles, “Global Work,” 1618; Arnold and Hewison, “Exploitation in global supply chains,” 180.

115. Arnold and Hewison, “Exploitation in the global supply chains,” 169; Brown, Andrew and Hewison., Kevin “Economics is the Deciding Factor: Labour Politics in Thaksin's Thailand,” Pacific Affairs 78 (2005): 353–75, here, 362–63, 368CrossRefGoogle Scholar.