The Role of the Labour Unions in the Process of Democratisation in Asia:
The Oslo Asia Workshop at SUM
Olle Törnquist and Gunnar Gase Handeland (eds)
Working Paper Nr. 2000.5
Full text .pdf version
Abstract
The question that all the contributors in this collection address is
whether the labour unions have or should have a significant role in the
process of democratisation in Asia. Although it seems as if the power
of the unions are decreasing in Europe, it will be argued here that the
labour movement in Asia is on the return and has to be brought into the
debate on the democratisation in the region. The changing international
environment the last decades has led to a decline of authoritarian state
power with its repressive labour relations, and the international organisations
have also been relieved from the old pressure of the cold war period.
A lot of the countries in Asia first experienced this changing political
climate after the Asia Crises in the late 90s. Therefore we can now observe
a growing awareness on the role of labour unions within Asia.
This paper is based on a workshop in Oslo in April 2000 where three invited
speakers talked about the role of unions from three different perspectives.
Professor Bjørn Beckman is discussing the role of the labour unions in
the process of democratisation from a general perspective, while Dr. Ratna
Saptari discusses it on the regional level in Asia. They both claim that
the labour movement is an important political factor. Professor Beckman
also says that the fight for union rights are closely related to the fight
for democratisation, because unions rights include some core political
and civil rights, as the right to organise. Finally, Ms. Hemasari Dharmabumi
exemplifies the various problems that the Indonesian unions have faced
after former President Suharto stepped down in 1998. There are many unions
in Indonesia, and most of them have close links to the existing political
parties. Hemasari quotes that it is important that unions after the economic
crises are build from below as true independent organisations in order
to represent the workers interests towards the state and the capital.
She also talks about the necessity of getting organisational and financial
support from other countries to the process of building new structures
of independent unions in Indonesia.
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