Textures of Struggle: The Emergence of Resistance among Garment Workers in Thailand

3. Workers in the Post-Crisis Period

3 3 Workers in the Post-Crisis Period The financial crisis in East Asia, triggered by the collapse of the Thai baht in July 1997, prompted many large employers to close down their factories and outsource production to smaller, non-unionized, subcontract factories as a cost-cutting measure. Massive layoffs of women in export industries resulted. A large part of the financial crisis was a direct result of sustained infusion of foreign capital, or “hot capital,” during the early to mid-1990s, which primarily went into currency speculation, the stock market, and the real estate and financial sectors. Lured by the prospect of quick and easy profit, owners of large manufacturing establishments, including those in the textile industry, became major players in stocks and real estate, investing the earnings from their companies. Subsequently, the lack of continuing investment in the productive sectors of manufacturing, especially in labor and new machinery, caused a slowdown and stagnation of Thailand ’s export sector. By the late 1990s, major export manufacturing industries were laying off large numbers of their workers. In 1998, many textile and garment companies closed down, displacing hundreds of thousands of workers from the manufacturing sector, a significant number of them women.1 At one textile factory, nearly 5,000 women, most of whom had been employed for ten or more years, were laid off in the month of July alone because a new labor law, scheduled to take effect in August, mandated high worker compensation for 3 Workers in the Post-Crisis Period 131 longtime employees. Although factory owners often cited “poor market conditions” as the primary reason for shutting down and for the dismissal of workers, they still wanted to run their businesses and saw the “crisis” as a great opportunity to lower production costs while maintaining profitability . Having received a US$17.2 billion dollar bailout package from the IMF, the Thai state was obligated to abide by the usual loan conditions which gave large and medium-size factories a green light to lower labor costs even further as the cost of living and the inflation rate rose. Consequently, labor laws and regulations were relaxed, causing common violations in regard to worker protection–related issues such as wages and job security. A changing production environment following a period of economic crisis had implications for women in both factory settings, F1 and F2. In the context of recession and a weakened economy, new mechanisms of control over labor not only forced women to work longer hours but acted as an essential tool to circumvent labor law, rupture a strongly unionized workforce, and stem labor uprisings. The changing nature of production was characterized by the shift away from the assembly line and overtime system of work toward a “new” regime involving a piece-rate work system.2 The implementation of this system not only worsened structural conditions within the factory but also created tension and animosity among workers: the competition of individual women for piecework inhibited their socialization and solidarity while encouraging individuation and self-interest. Workers were forced to work as much as they were physically capable of doing (while “voluntarily” forgoing bathroom breaks, eating, and sleeping) in return for subsistence wages. Studies in the research literature on women and development which see women as trapped in an exploitative situation sometimes fail to look at women’s responses in times of crisis and recession, when employment opportunities disappear and the norms of passivity no longer apply. I explore these issues by examining the changing structural conditions of work and living, the outsourcing of production from the urban to rural areas, and the practices of factory owners. Entrenched in an economic slump, women who were dismissed from the jobs to which they had devoted most of their lives confronted a harsh and unwelcoming territory. How did factory workers respond to worsening conditions of work and pay as they faced an uncertain future? How did the behavior and attitudes among militant women in unionized factories and among nonmilitant 132 Textures of Struggle women change? Given the increasingly difficult circumstances facing workers within the industry as a whole, what was the impact on worker consciousness and collective action? The actual experiences of some workers from both F1 and F2 make it possible to examine how new forms of managerial control, along with worsened structural conditions of work, produced rebellious responses, and also to take...