Solidarity Formations Under Flexibilisation: Workplace Struggles of Precarious Migrants in Thailand
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15173/glj.v4i2.1135Keywords:
flexibilisation, migration, Myanmar, precarious labour, Thailand, workplace struggle,Abstract
Recent scholarship on precarious labour has called attention to global transformations in employment regimes, which have given management greater freedom in setting the terms of work. Such ‘flexibility’ in employment is associated with a decrease in work, wage and livelihood security; more temporary, rather than open-ended, job contracts; a roll-back of employment benefits; heavy restrictions on workers’ collective organisation; and a greater reliance on migrant labour. To date, scholars have mostly emphasised the negative impact this transformation has had on workers’ solidarity. However, as this article highlights, flexibilisation can also function as an enabler of solidarity. Presenting an ethnographic case study of a workplace struggle at an export processing zone in northwest Thailand, it is argued that where flexible labour regimes incite shared grievances among workers and occlude the representative role of trade unions officials, they have facilitated self-organised struggles among workers based on a clear sense of common cause.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Global Labour Journal's authors grant the journal permission to publish, but they retain copyright of their manuscripts. The Global Labour Journal applies a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivatives 4.0 International License.
Under the terms of this licensing framework anyone is free to share, copy, distribute and transmit the work, under the following conditions:
- Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
- Noncommercial Use: You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
- No Derivative Works: You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.
For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.
Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get permission from the copyright holder, the author of the piece. The author's moral rights are retained in this license.