Saturday, December 28, 2013

Labour Rights in the Electronics Industry

The Asia Monitor Resource Centre has published a new book, Labour Rights in the High Tech Electronics Industry:
Case Studies of Workers' Struggles in Samsung Electronics and its Asian Suppliers.  

The book is a great complement to the Bluestocking Institute's book, Lessons for Social Change in the Global Economy: Voices from the Field, which includes a chapter from AMRC's Sanjiv Pandita and Fahmi Panimbang.

Here's a description of the book from the AMRC website:

Labour Rights in the High Tech Electronics Industry describes the struggles of workers fighting for their basic rights in the electronics industry with a focus on the operations of Samsung Electronics and its Asian suppliers, including those in South Korea, Indonesia, India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Taiwan. It also discusses the overall situation of the electrical appliance and electronics industries in Japan where workers have been hit hard by factories relocations.

This book is dedicated to all workers who have lost their lives in struggles for their rights, and to those who have suffered due to occupational diseases and industrial accidents in South Korea and many other places in Asia and beyond, and to victims who have died due to cancer from working in electronic factories. This book also salutes the survivors and their families, who struggle every day for justice.

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Lessons for Change in the Global Economy: Voices from the Field

Our edited collection of chapters exploring approaches to creating change is now available for preorder. You can get a 30% discount if you preorder the book from Lexington: order directly online and enter the promotional code 'LEX30AUTH14' or download the order flyer.

In the face of globalization’s massive social and economic transformations and the resulting persistent inequality, activists, labor organizers, and advocacy NGOs are seeking and creating change beyond the confines of formal state politics and across national borders. Given the breadth of local issues activists face, the ways they define the problem and seek redress vary widely. This book provides a unique perspective on these efforts, gathering into one volume concrete examples of the implementation of different strategies for social change that highlight the challenges involved. This provides useful lessons for those involved in social change, as well as for those studying it. Contributors to the volume are scholars and practitioners around the world, and they draw on strong connections with people working in the field to improve working conditions and environmental standards of global production systems. This allows readers to develop a more comprehensive and grounded understanding of strategies for social change.

This book maintains a strong balance between breadth and specificity. It provides an overview of the themes of social change, which contextualizes and draws common threads from the chapters grounded in specific geographic locations and political spaces of change. The chapters analyze environmental and social problems and the varying degrees of success activists have had in regulating industries, containing environmental hazards, and/or harnessing aspects of an industry for positive social and economic change. Contributors draw upon different ways of creating change, which include corporate social responsibility schemes, fair trade regimes, and community radio. By providing insight into the potential and limitations of actions taken at different levels, the book encourages a critical perspective on efforts for social change, grounded in an understanding of how conditions around the world can affect these activities. 
Order now: Amazon, Book Depository.