The International Labor Movement as an agent of change: Temporary Foreign Workers and Union Renewal in Asia

Abstract

Abstract This paper analyses the role of the Global Union Federations (GUFs) and Solidarity Support Organizations (SSOs) have played in Asian unions’ attempts to reach out to temporary foreign workers, drawing on ten years of qualitative fieldwork with the GUFs at headquarters and regional level and with their affiliates in the seven Asian countries that rely most heavily on temporary labor migration. Union renewal and revitalization are seen as side-effects of that focus, as new constituencies are able to shore up membership and bring new ideas and perspectives into the movement.

Keywords

• Temporary workers
• Global Union Federations
• Unionism in Southeast Asia
• Union revitalization