CONFRONTING STATE, CAPITAL AND PATRIARCHY

Transcription

1 CONFRONTING STATE, CAPITAL AND PATRIARCHY

2 Confronting State, Capital and Patriarchy Women Organizing in the Process of Industrialization Edited by Amrita Chhachhi Lecturer in Women's Studies Institute of Social Studies The Hague and Renee Pittin Associate Professor Women and Development Programme Institute of Social Studies The Hague in association with the Palgrave Macmillan

3 First published in Great Britain 1996 by MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN ISBN (ebook) DOI / First published in the United States of America 1996 by ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., Scholarly and Reference Divisilm, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y ISBN Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied Amrita Chhachhi and Renee Pittin 1996 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1996 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permissilm. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Apt 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London WI P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages I OS

4 Contents List of Tables List of Figures Preface Notes on the Contributors vii viii ix X Introduction Amrita Chhachhi and Renee Pittin Part I Reconceptualising Industrialisation and Organisation 33 Appraising Recent Developments in the World Market for Nimble Fingers 35 Diane Elson 2 Women Organising in the Process of Deindustrialisation 56 Martha Roldan 3 Multiple Identities, Multiple Strategies 93 Amrita Chhachhi and Renee Pittin Part ll Strengthening and Broadening the Base: Trade Unions and New Organisational Strategies Research in Action: Organising Women Factory Workers in Pakistan 135 Farhat Parveen and Karamat Ali S The Contribution of Feminist Training to the Democratisation of Labour Unions Cecilia Olea Maule6n 6 Philippine Trade Unions and the Challenge of Gender 164 Jurgette A. Honculada 7 Urban Working-Class Women: The Need for Autonomy 183 Rohini Bensman 8 Women Organising for Change in Caribbean Free Zones 205 Leith L. Dunn v 151

5 vi Contents 9 Asian Industrial Women Workers in the 1980s 244 Loh Cheng-Kooi 10 Women Working Worldwide: A Case Study 256 Linda Shaw Part ill Work Is Where You Find It: Organising from Home and Community The Ideology of Domesticity and the Struggles of Women Workers in Zimbabwe 273 Rudo B. Gaidzanwa 12 Women Organising under the Structural Adjustment Programme 290 Mairo V. Bello 13 Homeworking in South Korea 307 Young-ock Kim 14 Purple and Red Banners: Joint Strategies for Women Workers in the Informal Sector 330 Nandita Gandhi Index 360

6 List of Tables 12.1 Imports by End Use at Current (1983) Prices (N million) Percentage of Homework by Industry Average Monthly Labour Costs of Manufacturing Workers The Most Unsatisfactory Aspects of Homework Statistics for Homeworkers versus Factory Workers in Manufacturing Industries Demographic Characteristics for On-site Married Women Workers and Homeworkers (urban area only) Trade Union Membership in India 333 vii

7 List of Figures 13.1 Sub-contracting Relations (Firms H, D) 13.2 Sub-contracting Relations (Firms C, K) 13.3 Two Examples of Lack of Employment Security 13.4 Fluctuation in Monthly Sales (Firm G) viii

8 Preface On April 1991, a group of activists, researchers and policy-makers met at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague, at a Workshop on 'Women Organising in the Process of Industrialisation'. The participants, from Argentina, Peru, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Philippines, Hong Kong, South Korea, Jamaica, United Kingdom and the Netherlands, spent two weeks in intensive sessions at the workshop, presenting and sharing their research and experiences. The present volume represents in part the fruits of that interaction. In addition, the workshop, and this volume, are intended as a contribution toward the strengthening of an international action/research network in relation to women and industrialisation, a first step in the exchange of ideas and experiences to build a comparative framework which links analysis, planning and policy-making. We would like to thank the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs for their support of this initiative, the Institute of Social Studies for logistic and administrative support, our colleagues in the Women and Development Programme, and Liesbeth van Nispen for her unfailing assistance throughout. We should also like to acknowledge and thank each other, and recognise here both the extraordinary patience we have exhibited and the tremendous pleasure we have derived from working with each other in co-ordinating the workshop and editing this volume. Amrita Chhachhi and Renee Pittin ix

9 Notes on the Contributors Amrita Chhachhi is a Lecturer in Women's Studies at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague. She has published numerous articles on and continues her research on women and industrialisation, and on the state, legal systems, identity politics and fundamentalism in South Asia. She is Co-ordinator of an ongoing action research project on Working Women and Organisational Strategies in India. She is also involved with feminist networks in South Asia. Renee Pittin is an Associate Professor in the Women and Development Programme at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague. She has written extensively about women and industrialisation, particularly in Nigeria and West Africa. She is engaged in an international research project on Women, Technology and Employment, and continues also her research on issues of changing ideology and economic access in relation to women. Diane Elson is a Professor in the Department of Economics, University of Manchester. She has written widely on gender and development, and has acted as a consultant to the Commonwealth Secretariat, FAO and ILO. Her books include Male Bias in the Development Process, and Women's Employment and Multinationals in Europe, co-edited with Ruth Pearson. Martha Roldan is a researcher with CONICET, the National Council of Research in Argentina, and is based in Buenos Aires at FLACSO, the Latin-American Faculty of Social Sciences. Martha has published many articles on trade unionism, on homeworking, and on industrial restructuring and technological change, particularly in relation to women. With Lourdes Beneria, Martha has co-authored The Crossroads of Class and Gender: Industrial Housework, Subcontracting and Household Dynamics. Karamat Ali works with the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research, Karachi, Pakistan. He is a trade unionist, actively involved in issues of workers' rights, women's rights, and child labour. He has initiated and is part of a number of networks linking trade unions and NGOs in South Asia. Farhat Parveen works with the Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research, Karachi, Pakistan. She is engaged in research and action with women industrial workers. X

10 Notes on the Contributors xi Cecilia Olea Mauleon works with the Centro Flora Tristan, a feminist organisation which deals with a variety of women's issues in Peru. Cecilia is particularly involved as researcher and activist in the Women and Work Programme; the Programme provides for the promotion, training and support of women workers. Jurgette A. Honculada is Director of the Labour Education and Research Network of the National Federation of Labour in the Philippines. She is also engaged in research and writes about, among other topics, the relation of gender to trade union activities and organisation. Rohini Hensman has published numerous articles and books on industrial workers, trade unions and working women including, most recently, To Do Something Beautiful, a novel about women workers in Bombay. She has been part of the Union Research Group, Bombay, and has been involved in many other actions and investigations, including the Bhopal disaster, and assisting Tamil refugees in Sri Lanka. Leith L. Dunn is a Jamaican activist and researcher. She carried out a pioneering study of free trade zones in Jamaica, which was followed up by the creation of a women's action committee to improve women workers' situation. Leith has written also on issues of worker participation and leadership, and upon export-oriented industrialisation in the Caribbean as a development strategy, and its impact on women. Her work as a project officer has provided an opportunity to link policy, research and action. Lob Cheng-Kooi has worked for several years with the Committee for Asian Women, based in Hong Kong. The Committee for Asian Women assists in consciousness-raising, organising, and networking among women workers in Asia, and creating extended links of solidarity. Cheng has been programme officer for CAW, is on the editorial team of the Asian Women Workers Newsletter, and co-edited for CAW, with Cheung Choi Wan, the book, Many Paths, One Goal: Organising Women Workers in Asia. Linda Shaw lectures in the Department of Sociology at the University of Manchester. She is a founder member of Women Working Worldwide, an organisation which concerns itself with the employment and working conditions of working women internationally, and which seeks to support women through networking, information exchange and education. Linda has written, campaigned and organised extensively on behalf of Women Working Worldwide.

11 xu Notes on the Contributors Rudo B. Gaidzanwa is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Zimbabwe. Rudo has been engaged in research particularly on unwaged workers, and on wives of minors. She is also doing research on violence, and has written about and been involved in a series of actions concerning women in Zimbabwe. She is the author of Images of Women in Zimbabwe. Mairo V. Bello has undertaken research on rural issues, on health and on the economy in relation to Nigerian women. She is a member of Women in Nigeria, an organisation which recognises that women are oppressed in relation to both gender and class, and which seeks to improve women's situation through research, education, policy and action. Mairo has held the offices of State Coordinator and National Treasurer in the organisation. Young-ock Kim works as a researcher at the Korean Women's Development Institute. Her primary interest is women workers' problems, and she has done considerable research particularly on women homeworkers. She has written also on the position of women workers in manufacturing industries in South Korea. Young has recently completed a master's degree in Economics. Nandita Gandhi has carried out research and written on a number of issues and actions, including the anti-price rise movement in Bombay and the situation of homeworkers. She is involved with a number of activist organisations, and is a member of the Forum against Oppression of Women. With Nandita Shah, she has recently published Issues at Stake, a book about the women's movement in India. She is presently engaged in the research project on Working Women and Organisational Strategies in India.