Organising Labour in Globalising Asia: An Introduction

The historical experience of capitalist industrialisation in Western Europe led liberals and socialists alike to view labour organising as a normal - although not uncontested - occurrence. Despite differences in the social and political contexts of industrialisation, and in the timing and structure of that process, the struggles of Western European workers and their movements were widely accommodated within democratic frameworks, characterised by rights of association, systems of parliamentary representation and the rise of social safety nets (Geary, 1981; Katzenelson and Zoldberg, 1986). Thus labour organising came to be associated with the political inclusion of 'acceptable' expressions of labour dissent, sanctioned and enforced by the state and, in some cases, linked to parties contesting open national elections (Tilly, 1995). European liberals and socialists may have disagreed over the content and purpose of workers' organising, but they acknowledged and predicted its widespread occurrence in the capitalist societies.