Networks of Labour Activism: Collective Action across Asia and Beyond. An Introduction to the Debate

Abstract

As an Introduction to the Debate section that follows, this article develops the concept of ‘Networks of Labour Activism’ (NOLA) as a distinct, and important, aspect of cross‐border, cross‐organizational mobilization of workers, trade unions and other organizations and groups. NOLAs are seen as different from traditional labour activist networks in that they are neither solely connected to the position of labour in production processes, nor wholly reliant on the soft and discursive power of advocacy coalitions. The authors understand NOLAs to be characterized by the interaction of different types of labour rights, social movement and community organizations, joining forces in complex forms of strategizing vis‐à‐vis multiple targets. Thus, cross‐boundary strategizing (across organizational and geographical divides) is seen as a basic characteristic of NOLAs. The authors argue that NOLAs continue to be deeply embedded in political‐economic contexts of the state and global value chains, and alliance formation reflects the peculiar vulnerabilities and constraints resulting from this embeddedness. This Introduction draws on multiple studies of NOLAs from around the world, but its main focus is on some of those Asian countries which are at the centre of global supply chain capitalism and labour exploitation, and which have become the laboratory for new forms of networked worker agency and activism.

Exercising associational and networked power through the use of digital technology by workers in global value chains

“…Hence, our point of departure within this literature on GVCs and worker power is to examine collective worker power in a transnational manner to improve working conditions in specific production or factory locations in GVCs. This is in recognition of the increasing importance networks of labour activism --a network of labour activists as opposed to trade unions --have become for transnational labour activism in GVCs (Graz et al, 2019;Merk and Zajak, 2019;Piper et al, 2017;Zajak et al, 2017). Specifically, we focus on two forms of collective worker power, associational power and networked power, and connect them with how digital tools are used in their exercise including transnationally.…”

Channels for Workers' Voice in the Transnational Governance of Labour Rights?

“…The latter focuses on extrainstitutional tactics, in particular on strategies of disruption via strikes or transnational mobilization (Chan, ; Selwyn, ; Zajak et al. ).…”

“…In this context, studies address worker participation either from the perspective of the top-down enforcement of rules by auditing and the effects this can have on worker participation at the factory level (Anner, 2012;Locke, 2013); or from an activist perspective which discusses strategies of resistance against exploitative working conditions in global supply chains. The latter focuses on extrainstitutional tactics, in particular on strategies of disruption via strikes or transnational mobilization (Chan, 2014;Selwyn, 2013;Zajak et al 2017).…”

‘In This Profession We Eat Dust’: Informal and Formal Solidarity among Women Urban Transportation Workers in Nepal

“…However, less has been written on their role in formal and informal collective organizing in this world region. For example, in a recent Forum Debate section of Development and Change on networks of labour activism in Asia (see Zajak et al., ) both gender as a major mediating category of labour activism, and the specific roles of women in Asian labour activism, are left relatively unexamined. A large corpus of scholarship on labour and organizations centred in the global North has argued that collective action is a fraught, gendered process (Boston and O'Grady, ; Dickens, ; Kirton, ; Tomlinson, ).…”