Labour in Global Value Chains in Asia

This book studies labour conditions in GVCs in a variety of sectors and across several Asian countries.

Dev Nathan (Edited by), Meenu Tewari (Edited by), Sandip Sarkar (Edited by)

9781107103740, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 13 October 2016

560 pages
24 x 16.3 x 4 cm, 0.85 kg

'The link between an increasingly important type of participation in international trade and conditions in the labor market, and thus the process of development in general throws much-needed light on a topical subject of great concern in Asia and elsewhere.' Pranab Bardhan, University of California, Berkeley

This book brings together a set of studies on labour conditions in global value chains (GVCs) in a variety of sectors, ranging from labour-intensive sectors (garments, fresh fruits, tourism), to medium and high technology sectors (automobiles, electronics and telecom) and knowledge-intensive sectors (IT software services). The studies span a number of countries across Asia - Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. This book stands out for its grounded and detailed examination of both what is working and what is not working as Asian labour gets more embedded in global value chains. In trying to identify spaces for progressive action and policies in the current GVC-linked global work environment, the book goes against the grain in searching for an alternative to laissez faire forms of globalisation.

1. Introduction Dev Nathan, Meenu Tewari and Sandip Sarkar
2. Achieving better work for apparel workers in Asia Arianna Rossi
3. Improving wages and working conditions in the Bangladesh garment sector: the role of horizontal and vertical relations Nazneen Ahmed and Dev Nathan
4. Bargaining in garment GVCs: the Asia floor wage Anannya Bhattacharjee and Ashim Roy
5. Fresh produce markets, standards, and dynamics of labour: grapes in India Sukhpal Singh
6. The 'zero-fee' tour: price competition and chain downgrading in Chinese tourism Yang Fuquan, Yu Yin and Dev Nathan
7. Restricting competition to reduce poverty: impact of the tourism value chain in an upland economy in China Yang Fuquan, Yu Xiaongang, Yu Yin, Govind Kelkar and Dev Nathan
8. Restructuring of post-crisis GVCs: tourism in Bali, Indonesia Girish Nanda and Keith Hargreaves
9. Dynamics of labour-intensive clusters in China: wage costs and moving inland Lixia Mei and Jici Wang
10. Migrant labour in global value chains in Asia Yuko Hamada
11. From disposable to empowered: rearticulating labour in Sri Lankan apparel factories Annelies M. Goger
12. Scripted performances? Local readings of 'global' health and safety standards in the apparel sector in Sri Lanka Kanchana N. Ruwanpura
13. Diffusing labour standards down and beyond the value chain: lessons from the Mewat experiment Meenu Tewari
14. Social upgrading in mobile phone GVCs: firm-level comparisons of working conditions and labour rights Joonkoo Lee, Gary Gereffi and Sang-Hoon Lee
15. The politics of global production: Apple, Foxconn and China's new working class Jenny Chan, Ngai Pun and Mark Selden
16. New strategies of industrial organisation and labour in the mobile telecom sector in India Sumangala Damodaran
17. Global production networks and labour process Praveen Jha and Amit Chakraborty
18. Still a distance to go: social upgrading in the Indian ITO-BPO-KPO sector Ernesto Noronha and Premilla D'Cruz
19. What do workers gain from being in a GVC? ICT in India Sandip Sarkar and Balwant S. Mehta
20. Governance types and employment systems Dev Nathan
21. The double movement of labour in the reformation of GVCs Dev Nathan, Meenu Tewari and Sandip Sarkar.

Subject Areas: Economic growth [KCG], Labour economics [KCF]