Industrialization and the Changing Labour Process in SE Asia: Implications for 'First World' Countries

Abstract

The growing prominence of products from the 'offshore' factories in SE Asia on world markets poses a challenge to the established national firms of Western Europe. Thev have adjusted to the new situation, in part, by undertaking joint ventures with local Asian businessmen. Judgement about future trends, however, requires more than a study of market phenomena. It involves an understanding of how far a genuine industrialization process has put down roots in SE Asia from the viewpoint of the labour process -the formation of a working class, of unions and of a responsible attitude by capital to new workers. The article describes key aspects of the labour process in three different forms of capital ownership of firms: local, joint-venture, and overseas-owned. It uses empirical data from a survey of three industrial estates in Malaysia.