Informalising Labour in Asia's Global Factory

Abstract

This article analyses the way in which informality becomes the common feature of capitalist labour in globalising Asia. As the mobility of capital has developed, different industries and production processes are now neatly interwoven. This transnationally co-ordinated capitalism subjugates almost all of Asia's population to the expanding circuit of capital that builds hierarchical forms of the division of labour for the creation and realisation of profit. In this “global factory,” capitalist labour becomes the common basis of living for the people of Asia. At the same time, the global factory gives a particular informal nature to capitalist labour and changes its social form in Asian societies as mobile capital requires flexible and disposable forms of capitalist labour. Throughout Asia, unwaged workers and workers in informal employment are increasing in number. These workers lack legal, institutional and, most of all, union protection. It is urgent for the labour movement in Asia to develop a new organising and solidarity strategy that addresses the comprehensive recomposition of labour.