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2002-11-20 19:03:14, 조회 : 377 |
1999 Maria Rhie Chol Soon
Introduction
The global economy and the new world order are dominated by the developed countries and the Multi-national Companies(MNCs). In many countries their living standards of the poor have worsened. When we speak of the poorest out of the poor, we are almost always speaking about women. Poor men in the developing world have even poorer wives. And the current economy crisis and structural adjustment policies have placed heaviest burden on poor women who earn less than men.
APEC's Globalization Agenda
One of the most important developments in the history of APEC happened at the 1999 meeting. The ministers issued the Seoul Declaration of APEC ministers which gave APEC its first real focus since it was founded in 1989. The 1993 meeting in Seattle, USA gave birth to the Blake Island Free Market vision firming up the groups' free market agenda and strengthening the United States' leading influence in APEC.
The landmark Declaration of Common Resolve which was issued by the 1994 Bogor summit states that APEC wants to encourage closer regional cooperation among its members by reducing trade barriers, promoting investments and achieving borderless trade within the Asia-Pacific region. It commits APEC's full and active support to the World Trade organization/General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (WTO/GATT). In fact, APEC liberalization is described as going beyond GATT.
Most importantly, the Bogor Decaration gave birth to the 2020 plan. According to this plan, the APEC members commit to complete the achievement of free and open trade and investment no later than 2010 for industrialized countries, 2015 for newly industrializing countries and 2020 for developing countries. Following this, several working groups bodies and committees emerged to look after the liberalization of various sectors e. g. human resources, energy, transportation and communication, etc.
This is true in both senses: APEC is dead serious about its globalization agenda, and APEC works for the interest of the business sector, not the people. APEC wants to remove trade barriers and obstacles for unhampered business operation. Whereas citizens' groups have no place in the innumerable processes under APEC, the Business Community had the Asia-Pacific Business Forum, ABAC(APEC Business Advisory Group) and other bodies which recommends policies and targets for APEC. As US Economic Under-secretary Spero puts it:"APEC is not for government. It is for business. Through APEC, we aim to put government away."
On the other hand, APEC refuses to include labor rights and social issues which will be affected by APEC and globalization. It refuses to ensure that internationally recognized workers' rights and standards are promoted and protected. Like WTO, APEC claims that labor issues are highly political and wishes to ignore laws and mechanisms protecting workers in order to ensure competitiveness in the global economy. APEC treats workers as inputs in production process, not people with rights.
The commitments and decisions made by government leaders, when sitting in APEC do not require the people's approval - that is . they are not subject to congressional approval, nor to public hearings, plebiscites or referenda. But these commitments have the force of official government decisions.
The key effects, issues, and responses related to the global economy
in the Asia region
In the past two decades, the Asian economy has gone through an economic restructuring process in the light of its incorporation into the world economy. It is characterized by two ways : First, the movement of capital from newly industrialized countrie (NICs) to developing counties in order to get cheap land, raw materials and workers and to develop fresh consumer markets. The movement which started in the 1980s has formed a new regional division of labor through which newly industrialized countries provide the capital, and control technology and markets, while the developing countries provide land and abundant workers. The Southeast and South Asian countries thus become the destination of the relocation of production from the NICs of East Asia.
Second, the liberalization of national economy and the introduction of export-oriented industrialization in the less developed countries of Southeast and South Asia. Under the pressure of economic crisis in their won countries and the impact of World Bank-IMF policies, the states of these sub-regions have no choice but to open their economies and invite foreign capital to develop export-processing industries.
This trend signifies the retreat of the various traditional agrarian economies or import-substitution economies to the universalized capitalist economy. This kind of development does not provide much help to people's lives, and its impact is to make the nation more dependent on the world economy. The Korean case: Korea's image of being a high-tech producer is believed by a few sobering realities; the best selling Hyundai Excel is one of Korea's best known exports, but its body styling is Italian I origin; its engine is designed and manufactured by Mitsubishi and its transmission is both designed and manufactured by Mitsubishi. Most of the technological capitalities as is tues for other Korean electronics firms, in fact come from Japan. In fact of the matter is that Korea has not been able to graduate from mainly being an assembly site for foreign products, specifically japanese. Nearly 30 years after industrializing, Korea is mow even more dependent on foreign assistance.
Globalization/APEC is not something for workers to rejoice about. We have heard in this conference how working conditions have gone worse. Economic deregulation directly affects the lives of everyone, particularly workers, women and migrants. Which the unrestricted movement of goods, capital, investment and labor in APEC, the already scant, if not absent, social safety nets and legal protection of workers and other vulnerable groups will be eroded.
The flood of investments form the West into Asia, especially in th last 30 years, has undeniably been boosted by economic liberalization and globalization. Globalization facilitated the easy access of investors to countries where there is an abundance of human resources and where wages are ow. Investment in the era of globalization is viewed by most Asian governments as the easiest way to cash and capital. Others vies it as the only way to so-called "industrialization". In order to attract investments, countries in Asia and elsewhere in the world are falling over each other to provide financial incentives and special treatment to business people, and to suppress workers' rights to provide "industrial peace" and high productivities.
This fierce competition among governments result in th lowering of national labor standards, the adoption of more restrictive laws, the violation of workers' rights, and the reduction of benefits. In their effort to attract foreign investments, these governments have surrendered their responsibility to protect their won workers. Instead, they have made the workers the sacrificial lambs in the name of development and global competitiveness. These are not really new labor issues.
Industrial restructuring: Asian governments response
1. government promotion of export-oriented industrialization within the context of a
five-year national plan
2. privatization public sectors
3. government creation of Free Trade Zones as an invitation for foreign investment and
joint ventures
4. deregulation of industries tat were formerly nationalized
5. relocation of production by industrialists in East Asia to areas within South and
South East Asia with an abundant source of cheaper labor
6. importation of cheap labor
7. passage of labor laws forbidding strikes and discouraging the formation of trade
unions in the Free Trade Zones
Impact on women workers
increase of flexible workers
One of the harshest experiences of the globalization of the 1990s has been imposition of labor flexibility on workers across the globe. Flexibility involves the systematic destruction of workers job and income security, greater restrictions on workers' capacity to exercise their collective bargaining power, and a deterioration in wages and working hours. Of course the very fact that workers are deprived of the most basic forms of job security and protection against dismissal means that they are in no positions to protest against low wages and excessive working hours.
As has happened in many other countries, women are being gradually pushed into terribly low paid and insecure employment.
In South Asia and southeast Asia, a high percentage of the women workers in industry are employed as casual or contract workers who do not enjoy basic labor rights guaranteed by law. In fact, studies have found that while female wage workers are increasing in India, there is also a tendency on the part of employers to employ women mainly as casual, contract, or temporary workers.
Case: On March 8 Carmelita Alonzo, a swing machine operator at V.T. Fashion Image Inc. died after eleven days in hospital at the Andress Bonifacio Memorial Hospital in Cavite in the Philippines. According to a statement released by her co-workers ar V.T Fashion, "She was killed by her 14 hours workday everyday plus overtime of eight hours every Sunday." (Philippines News features March 19, 1997) The workers denounced the system of quotas set by the company which forced them to work 12-14 hours per day. Carmelita was a 35 year old mother of five children and died because of the strict regime in V.T. fashion and its sister company All Asia Garment Industries which forced a compulsory 14 hours shift on the workers. V.T. Fashion is a Taiwanese invested garment factory located in the Cavite Export processing Zone in Rosario, in the Philippines. The company started its operations in August, 1992 and produces skirts, jackets, dresses, short pants, vests, and blouses. The factory produces garments for the GAP, Guess, Jones New York, Eddie Bauer, May co. macy, Liz Clairborne, Ellen Tracy, Head, Benetton, Ruff Hewn, LeQ, Chachi, Ralph Lauren, etc. These garments are exported to USA, Canada, Taiwan, japan, and China.
There are 1,046 workers in the factory, 90 % are women workers aged between 17-30. Workers receive US $5.96 as the daily minimum wage and are subjected to overtime. This wage is not enough to meet the living costs of workers and rising prices. Workers are made t work from 7 a. m. on Saturdays and 6 a. m. to 2 p. m. on Sundays. Rest periods are usually one hour during lunch time and 30 minutes in the afternoon. Less than half of the workers are regular workers. Most are employed on 3 to 4 month apprenticeship contracts or as contractual workers with employment contracts of only 5 months. Others are employed on 6 months of employment and always makes sure that there is a new group of workers ready to replace those whose contracts are expiring. In addition, contractual workers have no sick leave with pay or other benefits. When the management discovers that a worker is pregnant she is immediately fired, even if her contract has not finished. Workers are easily dismissed and there is no union at VT Fashion Image. This is the case of a garment factory in the Philippines; it is no different from other garment factories working conditions in the rest of the Third World.
Female part-time workers and temporary workers have been increasing in East Asia too. On the one hand, it is a result of the industries, increasing need for a flexible workforce. On the other hand, the limited job opportunities available as a result of industrial restructuring have also forced women workers to accept part-time or temporary jobs. The failure of the East Asia governments to provide facilities and support to married working women has also forced them to take up part-time jobs and/or temporary jobs which are often much lower paid and insecure.
Unemployment and underemployment
Unemployment and displacement resulting from liberalization and globalization is continuing to undermine the living standards of workers and the people. A particularly negative effect of globalization is the legalization and popularization of the use of subcontract, flexible and other forms of informal labor to maintain global competitiveness. To reduce operating costs, companies maintains a lean and mean workforce that is made up of only a minimal number of regular workers with full benefits and of an army of temporary, contractual workers without job security, social benefits, labor rights or protection.
Job loss is common for both South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan due to company shutdowns or relocations of production. For the women who are the victims of company shutdowns and the privatization of state-owned enterprises, it means mass layoffs and unpaid compensation.
Underemployment is a greater issue for East Asia where the relocation of plans has greatly reduced the number of jobs available to women. The step-by-step removal of production line has resulted in underemployment for workers. Older women who have remained in the manufacturing sector have to rely on short-terms producers and subcontracting work that is very irregular and results in reduced pay. The reasons why these women stay are due to relatively higher pay in th sector and the possibility of receiving redundancy payments.
However, underemployment is less of an issue except in the shoe industry, where workers work as home based producers of parts on an irregular basis. There are many cases particularly of older women who ar almost half-unemployed. Women who remain in th factories after production reactions also undergo increase intensification of work which is due to automation of production and the efforts of the company to increase productivity with less workers.
Hong Kong also demonstrates an increase of casual work in th form of part-time, subcontracting, and temporary work mostly in the service sector. Part-time is seen to be based on gender biases against women as a strategy to deal with an oversupply of labor.
Women workers suffer for lowered wage, irregular hours, and exclusion from all benefits and welfare payments. Workers dispatched by subcontracting agencies also have little protection of their rights because they are no longer hired by the company where they actually do their work.
Experience of Korea
Beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s, Korean investors moved much of their capital from domestic labor-intensive manufacturing sited in the garment and shoe industries to overseas production zones. The rising value of the Korean won and the increasing wage rate for domestic workers led many Korean companies to seek a cheaper and more exploitable workforce in less industrially developed region.
Local governments in newly industrializing countries such as China, Vietnam, and Indonesia followed the repressive tactics and structural policies of previous export-processing zones(EPZs) in East Asia and Latin America. EPZs offered foreign investors fringe benefits and tax incentives as well as a cheaper, more disciplines workforce. Workers, mainly young women from rural areas, toiled under extremely harsh and inhumane working conditions for very low wages. Both the employers and these newly industrializing states engaged in repressive labor control tactics in order to make workers less expensive to hire, easier to fire and less able to organize independently. South Korean companies, which once provided low-wage, female labor mainly for U.S and japanese multinationals, now took advantage of exploitative working conditions in EPZs abroad to increase profits and exert more repressive labor control.
During the 1980s, while many Korean investors moved their production sites abroad, the Korean government spearhead an industrial restructuring policy which focused on developing heavy-chemical industries. In the process, women workers who were working in light industries were subjected to mass dismissals and more unstable forms of employments. Due to the increased collective strength of workers and the rise in their consciousness about their terrible working conditions and their low wages during the late 1970s and 1980s, the government and employers adopted a stronger strategy to block workers' demands and destroy workers' attempts to organize.
Worsening conditions of employment for women workers in Korea paralleled the withdrawal of foreign investments in domestic export- production zones, the transfer of domestic capital overseas, and mass dismissals through lock-outs of small to mid-size industries. Because the textile, shoe, garment, and electronics industries were classified as fading industries, the government showed little concern about to the large proportion of women workers who dominate these industries. When foreign-invested companies withdrew their capital, many women workers faced sudden dismissals and many became unemployed.
In Korea, the labor market is marked by considerable flexibility as shown in recent statistics around 6.3 million workers, almost 50% of th total employed on a temporary and part-time basis among whom 78% are women. Out of these women, 80% are married (by end of 1998), flexible enough now in Korea already but the foreign investors forced more and more flexible labor market in Korea.
Women's unemployment
In recent years, plants closures in Korea have been used by management to prevent workers from organizing and also as a way to gain access to cheap labor. COmpanis may move their plants to rural areas in the same country or simply move out of the country altogether. Job loss is common in Korea due to company shutdowns or relocations of production. for those women experiencing company shutdowns, the impacts are mass layoffs and unpaid compensation.
Since 1986 the structural adjustment programs which the government has undertaken, (especially since the late 1980s when Korean labor conflicts were at their height)have become increasingly serious. Declining industries (textile, clothing, shoes) are relocated abroad, while growing industries (steel, petrochemical, electricity, electronic, automobiles, shipbuilding and machinery) are given many incentives to develope. As women workers have always been concentrated in labor incentive jobs, jobs lost under industrial restructuring process are usually women's jobs. Unemployment occurs mostly in light industries where women workers are concentrated in the form of lay offs and dismissals. The major causes of these layoffs and dismissals are the withdrawal of foreign capital from ventures and their transfer abroad to other countries, the temporary suspension or permanent closures of small to medium sized firms and the systemization of sub-contracting. In Pusan where the shoe industry sat for five years from 1990 to 1994, 217 companies declared bankruptcy and 768 firms closed. The number of workers in the show industry which had been 164,000 at the beginning of 1988 decreased to 31,395 in 1993. In the case of the Kuro export-processing complex in Seoul, there was a reduction of personnel from 74,466 in 1987 to 43,357 in 1995 ( in the case of Seoul Export Complex 21.1 % of the employees were dismissed form 1987 to 1990). and in the Masan Free Export Zone, 47 % of the employees were dismissed from 1987 to 1992. The workers show were dismissed received neither training to obtain other employment nor any other support to guarantee their livelihood. The women workers who were unemployed were pushed into lower-level service industries or worked as housekeepers.
Since the strict conditions of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) economic bailout packages went into effect last December 1997, official government statistics report 솜 over 1.5 million Koreans have lost their jobs. However, when you count the number of "discouraged 'workers who have stopped looking for unemployment and the number of workers who have worked less than 14 hours a week, this figure amounts to almost 4 million workers. When compared to the pre-crisis figure of 300,000, the tremendous scale and scope of the current employment crisis is blatantly clear. Women workers, in particular, are adversely affected by the tremendous rise in unemployment. They are the first to be dismissed and the first to be subjected to more hazardous and insecure forms of employment such as work int he information sector and temporary employment.
In addition to the daily fear of losing one's job, workers also face worsening job conditions. Tremendous job uncertainty and instability, low wages, hazardous working conditions and intense sexual discrimination characterize an increasing proportion of the jobs available to workers. When companies also force workers to change their employment contracts from permanent to temporary status, often through sexual violence and/or threat of job loss. Only seven percents of the female labor force os organized, which leaves the vast majority of women workers without any institutional forms of protection from the intensification of employer abuses and the degradation of working conditions.
Although high unemployment rates also plague many advanced industrializing countries such as those of the European Union for a nation with no existing social welfare system and with a domestic economy that relies heavily on foreign investment, Korea's drastically rising unemployment translates into extreme financial insecurity, intensified social problems and tremendous emotional dislocation. For the most vulnerable sectors of the population such as women workers, particularly single mothers and women who operate as the head of their households, the situation is especially grave. Increasing unemployment has serious social, psychological as well as economic consequences.
The absence of an institutionalized social safety net and the rigid qualifications for unemployment insurance leave many women workers without any means of supporting themselves or their families. 65% if unemployed women are not eligible for unemployment insurance in South Korea since they work in firms with less than five employees. Many employers with less than 10 employees also do not register their employees for unemployment insurance either. These facts are particularly significant, given that 20 percents of women workers who have no access to unemployment insurance operate as the head of their households.
Dismissed women workers are often isolated from other workers experiencing the same trauma because they work in small-scale enterprises. Feelings of isolation and desperation translate into severe depression and post traumatic stress. Many women who are unable to cope with their day-to-day activities simply withdraw for the larger society. Women who experience severe emotional instability also represent a high-risk population with regards to health-related problems. The immune system of women who are emotionally unstable and weak often deteriorates. The absence of health insurance leaves many women without access to basic health services and subsequently increase the possibility of society-wide health problems.
An alarming increase of incidents such as suicide, domestic ad family violence, child abandonment and sexual harassment is also occurring. Daily reports of workers committing suicide and leaving families without any means of economic support fill news headlines form March to June 1998 (2,288 family heads committed suicide form march to June 1998 which is 25 suicide everyday, reported by Pyung Hwa News). Incidents of parents dropping their children off at day care centers and never returning to pick them up have risen. Male workers who feel powerless to fight their dismissals often target their wives and children as the object of their helplessness and frustration, thus giving rise to the increase in domestic and family violence.
This kind of situation affects women severly, particularly single mothers and women who are the heads of their households, rapidly rising unemployment poses serious imminent and long-term problems for the conditions of women and their families. If they are older than 40 years old, they can not fin any jobs, since no industries even low-level service sector employ older women.
Women in the less industrialized countries
Many Third World countries, while having gained political independence from the West, are economically heavily dependent on it. The basic idea of these policies expect the developing countries to carry out privatization and economic liberalization that is adversely affecting the local economy and it is mainly for the profit of the MNCs. Countries with debts have been forced by the IMF to carry out macro-economic stabilization and structural adjustment programs in order to ensure repayment and to protect the interest of the multi-national corporations. The following are powerful instruments of economic restructuring which affect the livelihoods of people in the Third World.
- Currency devaluation
- High interest rates to fight inflation, to promote savings, and to allocate investment
capital to the highest bidder
- Strict control of money supply and credit expansion
- Removal of trade and exchange controls
- Deregulation of prices of goods and services
- Reduction of state subsidies for consumers goods, foodstuffs and social services, like
health and education
- Freeze on wages and salaries at low levels
- Privatization of public sector enterprises
- Indiscriminate export promotion
- Open for private economic enterprises and their markets
These policies which are dictated by the first world and which are decided in the multi-lateral institutions are characterized by massive privatization and by the reduction of the role of the state in economic life. They also involve the drastic reduction of government deficits, and are achieved by slashing health education and other social welfare budgets. Poor countries have to follow the conditions dictated by the WB-IMF in order to get loans. As mentioned above, the conditions imposed have many negative impacts on these countries. In particular, they have severe impacts on women both as home cares and economic procedures. Only the military budget is exempted from structural adjustment loan conditions.
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