Women and Labour Organizing in Asia (ASAA Women in Asia)

"This book investigates women's labour activism in Asia. Although focusing primarily on women, the contributions to this book address issues that affect all workers. Chapters on China, India, Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Bangladesh examine the role women's activism has played inside, and outside, formal union movements. Whilst documenting the particular factors characterizing individual national contexts, this book emphasizes the similarities in women's experiences of unions and other forms of labour activism and the barriers women labour activists have faced. It considers the relationships between women union members and activists and male officials and union members, links with other social movements - particularly the broader women's movement - and the details of specific labour campaigns and struggles. In doing so, it details the role of women in union activism in Asia, covering all the major economies of the region, and successfully challenges the prevailing conception of Asian women workers as passive and uninterested in industrial issues."--Jacket.