SOAS Research Online

Abstract

This is the Korean translation of the first part of "Labour in Globalising Asian Corporations" published by Asia Monitor Resource Centre in 2006. This volume focuses on Samsung, the transnational electronics giant which owns a production and distribution network across the world. This book addresses how ‘work’ is being recomposed by mobile capital in Asia by looking at the impact of Samsung on labour relations in Asia's developing countries. In so doing, it traces the interaction between Samsung, the nation states and local labour. We show how the world of labour and living has changed for Asian workers as a result of Samsung's operation and expansion in Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, India, and China. Cases studies demonstrate how Samsung from South Korea manages 'peaceful' labour relations by establishing multi-layered hierarchical relations between workers across the borders in order to sustain profitable business in the increasingly competitive global market. Studies also present particular labour problems in Asian developing countries as moments of a bigger global transformation of social relations, in which labour becomes informal and purely capitalist in the face of growing mobility of capital in and beyond Asia.