Labour Relations at Other Institutes
School of Labor and Industrial Relations (The Philippines)The School of Labor and Industrial Relations of the University of the Philippines (SOLAIR) was founded in 1954 as the Labor Education Center (LEC) with the objective of educating Filipino workers and trade union leaders about their rights and responsibilities. In 1958, LEC was transformed into the Asian Labor Education Center as it extended its training services to cover workers in other Asian countries. By 1975, ALEC offered graduate studies in the field of labour and industrial relations. In 1988 it changed its name to SOLAIR.
SOLAIR now has 350 graduate students (who include some foreign students) enrolled in the Master of Industrial Relations (MIR) programme. Various symposia have been organized by the school. On 14 March 1998 'The State of Labor Relations and Employment in the Philippines' was held which resulted in a consensus on the need to revise and amend the Philippine labour code (laws), and to provide for protection to victims of labour market flexibility. On 25 March 1998, a symposium on 'Public Sector Labor Relations' was held in which union leaders in the government agencies and participants emphasized the need for amendments to the laws covering public sector labour relations, to allow for disputes settlement, an agency to review and recommend compensation adjustments for government employees, and provisions for the exercise of the right to strike. On 28 March 1998 a forum on 'Saving Jobs, Downsizing and the Currency Crisis' was held in Cebu City. The Mactan Export Processing Zones have increased employment in general, but individual firms are downsizing. Participants were mostly interested on searching for legally feasible solutions to the consequences of downsizing.
Apart from these symposia, SOLAIR organizes ongoing seminars on 'labour relations and collective bargaining'.
By May or June 1998, the 1997 issue of the Philippine Journal of Labor and Industrial Relations, a SOLAIR journal, will be off the press. It contains articles about the industrial relations aspects of the privatization of the Metro Manila Waterworks and Sewerage system, employee stock option plans in the Manila Electric Company, labour management co-operation schemes in a shipping company, non-union policies at the Mactan Export Processing Zone, an article about 'convergence on labour policies in South Korea and the Philippines'. This particular issue is supported by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung of Germany.
For more information please contact :
Maragtas S.V. Amante (Associate Professor)
School of Labor and Industrial Relations
University of the Philippines
Diliman, Quezon City
The Philippines
Fax: +63-2- 9207717
Email: maragtas@solair.upd.edu.ph
The Scalabrini Migration Center (the Philippines)
Established in the Philippines in 1987, the Scalabrini Migration Center (SMC) is a research institute dedicated to the study of human mobility. SMC attempts to meet this objective through its research programme, specialized publications, a documentation and resource centre, and the holding of conferences and other educational activities. The most recent research completed by the Center, in co-operation with the International Migration Organization, was on 'Pre-Departure Information Programs for Migrant Workers' (December 1997). The publication programme includes the Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, a scholarly quarterly; Asian Migrant, a quarterly magazine targeted at policy makers and advocates; and special volumes and research reports on different aspects of migration. The most recent initiative in information dissemination on migration is the Asian Migration News, an electronic posting sent bi-monthly to scholars, policy makers, advocates, and students of migration. Over 2,000 volumes and 40 periodicals are housed at the documentation and resource centre. Through its various activities and programmes, the Center has established links with academia, NGOs and other organizations in Asia and worldwide.
On 14-15 May 1998 The Center will hold a research conference (in co-operation with the ILO, the IOM, the UNFPA and others) concerning the migration implications of the economic crisis. Invited speakers are researchers from ten countries: Malaysia (+Sabah), Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Bangladesh. The proceedings will be published in a special issue of APMJ, plus there will be a booklet which we will publish within a month. We will keep you posted. We have also produced a primer on the Rights of Migrants and their Families (including a poster on the ratification of Asian countries of UN and ILO conventions related to migrants).
For more information please contact :
Dr Maruja Asis
Scalabrini Migration Center
P.O Box 10541, Broadway Centrum
1113 Quezon City
The Philippines
Tel: +63-2-7243512
Fax: +63-2-7214296
e-mail: smcres@mnl.sequel.net
Website: http//www.sequel.net/~smc.
Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (Denmark)
The Nordic Institute of Asian Studies has several larger research programmes which have been investigating various types of industrial development, and part of this research has focused on labour relations and human resource development. A number of researchers have been engaged in studies which are related to labour studies in various ways.
In Denmark, one of the research projects carried out by Peter Wad at the Department of Intercultural Communication and Management, Copenhagen Business School, concerns the dynamic efficiency of enterprise unions in comparative perspective. The project specifically analyses the development in Malaysia, South Korea, and Japan. A pilot project has been undertaken in co-operation between the same institute and the Centre for International Studies at Aalborg University under the title of 'Business in Development'. Among other studies, Peter Wad will investigate the motor industry in Malaysia.
At Roskilde University, there is a programme entitled 'Institutions and Industrial Development'. Also this programme has a broader focus than labour studies. The focus is the industrial development strategies, but includes studies of industrial organization as well. One of the themes is the division of labour inside and across the firm. Daniel Fleming and Henrik Soeborg are particularly concerned with investigating the human development in foreign enterprises in Malaysia, Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries, and Laurids Lauridsen has investigated the labour institutions in Taiwan and Thailand.
At the NIAS a project has been carried out by Irene Nørlund to investigate the role of trade unions and the labour regime in Vietnam. Other researchers at NIAS are partially involved in labour studies and are linked with researchers all over the Nordic countries.
Gothenburg University has a very well-established section for labour studies at the Department of History, headed by Bernt Schiller. Thommy Svensson has recently returned to the department and will follow up on activities related to labour studies. The main focus used to be the Scandinavian and European countries, but now studies of non-European societies have been started. In 1996, the '5th Nordic Conference of Working Life' was held. Currently plans are being made to organize a workshop at the end of the year on labour legislation in collaboration with the the Institute of Social Change and Critical Inquiry, University of Wollongong.
For more information please contact :
Dr Irene Nørlund
Nordic Institute of Asian Studies,
Leifsgade 33
DK 2300 Copenhagen S,
Denmark
Fax: + 45.32.96.25.30
E-mail: irene@nias.ku.dk
The Institute of Social Change and Critical Inquiry (Australia)
The Institute of Social Change and Critical Inquiry in combination with members of the Faculty of Commerce and members of the University of Newcastle (in NSW, north of Sydney) have submitted a National Key Centre for Research and Training application. It is designed to research and teach social transformation in the Asia-Pacific Region. Labour markets, labour regulation, migration, and science and technology policy are its central concerns. Funding is at $AUD 400,000 per annum for four years. Wollongong (and Newcastle) University have had to commit similar amounts in staff time and facilities.
A $AUD18,500 UMAP Grant (University Mobility in Asia Program) has also been obtained to support staff and student exchanges with the University of Indonesia. The institute's links are with with FISIP (Social and Political Sciences Laboratory, UI) and the Australian Studies Centre at UI. The institute has been reorganizing Research Programmes in the Institute to bring together its labour and social historians and its Asia-Pacific scholars; consisting of a team of about 12 scholars (and 6 PhD students) with industry and or country expertise. Seminars in 1998 will be held to ensure that people from different traditions and disciplines work together co-operatively. This research programme ' Asia-Pacific Labour and Social History' (ASPLASH) has $AUD25,000 funding for 1998 with possibly an additional $5-15,000.
The Institute is also funding a research programme on Migration and Citizenship under the leadership of Professor Stephen Castles and Dr Ellie Vasta. This programme also co-ordinates the UNESCO-MOST (Management of Social Transformation) project.
A working paper series has been established in each research programme of the Institute and currently the Institute is negotiating a book series with an Australian publisher (Halstead Press). The first volume will specifically look at the relationship between traditional Australian Labour Historigraphy and that in Southeast Asia.
For more information please contact :
Andrew Wells (Director, Associate Professor)
The Institute for Social Change and Critical Inquiry
University of Wollongong
Northfields Avenue
Wollongong NSW 2522
Australia
E-mail: Andrew_Wells@uow.edu.au