Defending the Quality of Life in a Global Economy

Abstract

In August 2004, the Support Group for Home-Based Workers, a network of women’s and labour rights organisations, carried out a consultation meeting on the “situation of home-based workers in Malaysia”. The invitation introduced the issue in the following way: “Persatuan Sahabat Wanita Selangor has completed a brief and initial study of home-based workers in some parts of the country. The study confirmed the difficulties that home-based workers face and the inadequacy of the Malaysian Labour Law in protecting such types of work. Increasingly, work for many workers is becoming more informalised. There are many issues that need to be addressed vis-à-vis these workers especially as they are unable to access the benefits that trade unions and labour organizations have argued for and obtained for workers. As a result, a few concerned NGOs (Persatuan Sahabat Wanita Selangor PSWS, Monitoring Sustainability of Globalization MSN, Labor Resource Centre LRC, Women and Worker’s Independent Media and Training Center WIMTEC) are calling for a brief consultation meeting to discuss how trade unionists, labour, women and human rights activists can together begin to address some of these issues for home-based workers.” All of the approximately 25 participants who answered the invitation and gathered in the Selangor Chinese Assembly Hall in Kuala Lumpur were women, among them several representatives from different unions such as the Malaysian Trade Union Congress (MTUC) and the National Union of Workers in the Shoe Manufacturing Industry. Members of social movements such as community organisers and female factory worker activists from the Community Development Centre (CDC) in Kajang, one of the industrial centres around Kuala Lumpur, and finally one female home-based worker from Penang as well. It was a very lively atmosphere, and some of the women even brought their children.