Vicki Crinis

University of Wollongong, Faculty of Law, Humanities and Creative Arts, Adjunct

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Address: Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia

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Papers by Vicki Crinis

Malaysia

Routledge eBooks, Jan 20, 2017

The archive of loss: lively ruination in mill land Mumbai

Asian Studies Review, Feb 3, 2020

Malaisie: Les défi s du mouvement syndical face aux travailleurs migrants

In Malaysia, the tripartite system of industrial relations does not sufficiently protect the inte... more In Malaysia, the tripartite system of industrial relations does not sufficiently protect the interests of workers, let alone those of migrant workers. The latter constitute an important reservoir of manpower for manufacturing industry, construction, plantations and services: often hired on a short-term contract, they are made redundant according to the needs of the employers. This paper focuses on trade union strategies for migrant workers. It also attempts to assess the impact of the social clauses contained in the chapter on the work of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPAP), which provides for the remedying of the problems of migrant workers and trafficking in human beings

The fragmentation of the clothing and textile trade union movement in Malaysia

The labour movements in Southeast Asia, and Malaysia in particular, have been shaped by colonial ... more The labour movements in Southeast Asia, and Malaysia in particular, have been shaped by colonial legacies, the cold war and the development models of strong state and export manufacturing industries tied to global markets (Ford 2013b). The labour literature from scholars such as Brown and Chatyaweep (2008) and Ford (2013b) argues that Southeast Asian states play a significant role in the de-unionization process to further their development plans

Female unionism in the Malaysian garment industry

In Malaysia, women workers in the garment and textile industries have their own trade union in ea... more In Malaysia, women workers in the garment and textile industries have their own trade union in each state but only 12% of workers in these industries are in the garment and textile workers\u27 trade union. This is both a reflection of the decline of trade union power in Malaysia and unions\u27 attitudes towards women. This paper questions male leadership attitudes towards women and how the largely female workforce in the garment industry has negotiated this lineal space

Women workers in Malaysia: globalisation and identity

Women make up the largest percentage of employees laboring for \u27progress\u27 in the manufactur... more Women make up the largest percentage of employees laboring for \u27progress\u27 in the manufacturing industries in Malaysia. They dominate the labor force in the three top GDP contributors - Electronics, Garments and Textile Industries. In the initial stages of development women were promoted for their \u27docile persona and nimble fingers\u27. Government advertising agencies attracted overseas manufacturing investment through cheap women\u27s labor. However, under the government\u27s new modernization programs images of nimble fingers have disappeared; the rhetoric has changed - Modern Malaysia is high-tech. Nowadays, in a Garment and Textile Trade promotion the government boasts that \u27low cost labor, is an advantage no longer enjoyed by prosperous Malaysia.\u27 However, improvements in wages deny the existence of the large numbers of manufacturing industries that continue to exploit low paid labor in Malaysia. The government is in a bind - while it needs to maintain a low-wage policy to continue to attract foreign investment, it needs to promote capital intensive industries so that the garment and textile industry can compete with the technologically sophisticated industries in other industrialized countries. What does this mean for women workers? Women\u27s identity as labor-intensive workers is \u27out of sight, out of mind\u27 under the government\u27s modernization program. The traditional garment industry is relegated to the less visible sites of production and to homework

Identity of women workers in modern Malaysia

Malaysian women under the colonial gaze

Transnational labour: Vietnamese workers in Malaysia

Garment industries in developing countries are tied to the global economy and make up the product... more Garment industries in developing countries are tied to the global economy and make up the production links in the periphery of the commodity chains. In chain analysis there is a division of power and wealth between the core and the periphery; while the core holds the power through design, marketing and retailing the periphery is dependent on the core for contracts. The garment industry in Malaysia is situated in the periphery and is almost totally reliant on contracts from the United States (US) and Europe for its survival. Since the global economic recession the contraction in the consumption of garments in these countries has translated into factory closures and lay offs in Malaysia. There are a number of foreign workers working in the clothing industry in Malaysia under the government’s guest worker policy. This paper provides an overview of the labour conditions and the lived realities of Vietnamese male and female labour migrants recruited to work in the clothing industries in Malaysia. In the labour migration literature most of the studies focuses on the transnational movements of workers between countries, especially in the context of Indonesian workers and domestic servants. In the sociology literature, the studies focus on the decline of national trade unions and the rise of NGOs in the national context there are few studies that examine the building of international relationships between workers, social movements, NGOs and unions that transcend the nation. Although many see the limitations of building labour solidarity and improving working conditions for transnational migrants in the destination country this paper argues that the lack of real labour representation and support leaves workers in a vulnerable situation. In response both international and local NGOs are building networks that offer workers a sense of community and support in the face of adversity

Sweat or no sweat: workers in the garment industry in Malaysia

Vietnamese Migrant Clothing Workers in Malaysia: global Production, Transnational Labour Migration and Social Reproduction

Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2013

The household in Southeast Asia is a site that provides the labour necessary for global productio... more The household in Southeast Asia is a site that provides the labour necessary for global production. And yet, under conditions of global restructuring many households have become worse off because of the way in which new employment opportunities for women have frequently been concentrated in labour-intensive, low-paid, feminized sectors of the economy. For transnational labour migrants, especially women from poor households, globalization has been experienced in terms of reconfigured household survival strategies. Globalization does not appear to offer much in the way of ‘empowerment’. This chapter discusses unskilled Vietnamese migrant workers in the Malaysian clothing industry. The chapter points to how social relations of reproduction are being transformed through capital accumulation, neoliberal trade policies and transnational labour migration.

Book Review: Spirits of Resistance and Capitalist Discipline: Factory Women in Malaysia , by Aihwa Ong

Aihwa Ong\u27s work on capitalist discipline in the electronic industrial sector of the 1980s Mal... more Aihwa Ong\u27s work on capitalist discipline in the electronic industrial sector of the 1980s Malaysia challenges readers to think about the ways in which the construciton and representation of women\u27s sexuality has developed as a form of control centred in the discourse of the sexed female body and has impacted upon women\u27s lives in the wider community

Introduction: dis-organising labour in the clothing industry in the Asia Pacific

The clothing industry provides employment for 60 million workers worldwide. More than a quarter o... more The clothing industry provides employment for 60 million workers worldwide. More than a quarter of these workers are employed in the Asia-Pacific region, where the industry is based on subcontracted production on behalf of international buyers. Rapid movements of manufacturing activity from country to country in search of cost advantages make clothing workers part of a globalizing labour market where they increasingly suffer from job insecurity. This book presents carefully researched case studies, which highlight the ways in which labour is informalized, fragmented and made disposable by the globalization of production. Chapters address issues pertaining to rights and citizenship, and new forms of activism and organization in conjunction and coordination with diverse support groups, consumers and wider global campaigns. Contributors further examine the role of the nation state, government regulatory bodies, as well as independent monitoring systems such as the International Labour Organization. Although there has been considerable effort directed to understanding how firms operate across multiple countries-in studies of the organization of global production networks, and the implications for complexities of scale, (de)territorialization and state development projectsthere has been far less focus on how these processes produce precarious labour and reshape worker consciousness. Offering new insights into the understanding and support of workers in the global textile and garment industry, this book will be of interest to academics in a variety of disciplines including Asian studies, sociology, political economy, development, human rights, labour and gender.

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Book Review: Assembling Women: The Feminization of Global Manufacturing . By Teri L. Caraway

Teri Caraway’s study of Indonesian labor in workplaces such as the garment, textile, electronics,... more Teri Caraway’s study of Indonesian labor in workplaces such as the garment, textile, electronics, timber, tobacco, and automobile industries is a contribution to the literature on the feminization of factory work in Southeast Asia. Overall, the book, presented in six chapters, questions why female inequality in the workforce continues. Why do women outnumber male workers in export-processing industries while the same numbers of women are not represented in capital-intensive industries? According to Caraway, political economists believe that once women entered the paid labor force, they would eventually equal male workers in number, but political economy analysis has not been able to explain why this did not occur. Her analysis takes a gendered and multilevel methodological approach and uses gender as a category of political economic analysis (p. 5) in order to explain women’s continued inequality in the workforce

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1 Global Commodity Chains in Crisis: The Garment Industry in Malaysia

Global commodity chains in crisis: the garment industry in Malaysia

Migrant workers in the clothing industry: networking in Christian spaces

Labour in the Clothing Industry in the Asia Pacific, 2016

Continuities and discontinuities: Malay workers and migrant workers in the manufacturing industries

Labour- intensive manufacturing and flexible workers in the global garment industry

Labour in the Clothing Industry in the Asia Pacific

Brand name manufacturers, codes of conduct and foreign workers in medium to large garment factories in Malaysia

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