Twenty-one-year-old Ramila Syangden weeps uncontrollably as she clutches her 10-month-old baby. She sits and watches as the pyre where her husband’s body will be cremated is set alight in the open Nepalese air. Syangden never considered one of the potential consequences of her husband’s decision to work abroad. Now she can’t ignore it. Hours before [...]

May Day moved beyond its roots as an international workers’ holiday to a day of international protest Tuesday, with rallies throughout Asia demanding wage increases and marches planned across Europe over government-imposed austerity measures. Europeans will take to the streets to protest against the measures that are being blamed for a big increase in the [...]

The government insisted on May Day, yesterday,  it would roll out the Bt300 daily minimum wage to the remaining 70 provinces as scheduled following its launch in seven provinces including Bangkok on April 7, despite employers’ complaints and threats of non-compliance. In her speech at the main May Day event at the Royal Plaza, Prime [...]

A massive street rally demanding electoral reforms in Malaysia raised questions Sunday (Apr 29) about whether the long-ruling coalition government will delay calling elections in the face of such a strong show of force by the opposition. Police used tear gas and chemical-laced water Saturday against some 50,000 people and arrested more than 450 at [...]

Malaysian riot police have fired tear gas and used water cannon on a crowd of protesters who had converged on the centre of the capital, Kuala Lumpur. Some 25,000 protesters marched on a central square in the city calling for changes to the electoral system. They believe the current arrangements will benefit Prime Minister Najib [...]

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SINGAPORE – Minister of State for Community Development, Youth and Sports Halimah Yacob has urged foreign domestic workers – who would have one day off every week from next year – to make use of the mandatory day off to upgrade themselves. While some choose to spend their day off shopping or catching up with [...]

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The Philippines, striking a blow for migrant women workers, has urged oil-rich member-countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to adopt measures that would speed up the repatriation of women workers during crises, particularly household service workers (HSWs) who are most vulnerable to physical and sexual abuses. Labour Secretary Rosalinda Baldoz raised the matter on [...]

East Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara. The family of one of three Indonesian migrant workers murdered in Malaysia last month alleged that the workers’ organs were removed before the bodies were sent home. Abdul Kadir Jaelani, 24, and Herman, 28, from Pancor Kopang village in East Lombok district, went to Malaysia in late 2010 along with [...]

Aminul Islam, a trade union organiser for the Bangladesh Garment and Industrial Workers Federation (BGIWF) and a member of the Bangladesh Center for Workers’ Solidarity (BCWS) was found dead on April 5, 2012. Police pictures of his body suggest that Islam was tortured before being killed. Aminul Islam became active in the Bangladeshi labour movement [...]

The House of Representatives unanimously endorsed a 1990 UN convention protecting migrant workers and their families on Thursday (April 12). Ratification of the convention mandates the government to take concrete measures to protect migrant workers amid an increasing number of abuse cases. Signed by Indonesia in 1993, the United Nations International Convention on the Protection [...]

Human rights organisations have accused the Malaysia government of caning and then deporting some 173 Indonesian workers, including 69 women and 6 children. Malaysian government officials confirmed to Bikyamasr.com on Sunday that the deportations had in fact taken place, but denied that any of the workers had been caned due to their violations in the [...]

Burma’s Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has won a by-election for parliament, her party says, after a landmark vote that saw 45 seats contested. Ms Suu Kyi’s opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) said she had easily won in Kawhmu. Official results are not expected until later in the week. In a statement, she [...]

Protests against Indonesia’s plans to increase government-controlled fuel prices by 33% spread Thursday, with thousands joining sometimes violent rallies across the archipelago. While Jakarta has yet to see anything close to the tens of thousands of angry citizens blocking traffic and commerce that some politicians had worried about, thousands of people, often from student and [...]

Police are accused of breaking a 21-year-old woman’s nose and injuring two other women as about 900 workers marched from the Win Shing-tex Cambodia garment factory in the capital’s Por Sen Chey district on Mar 27. Man Vanna, the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Unions (C.CAWDU) deputy president at the factory, said garment worker [...]

Seoul Metropolitan Government (SMG) announced on Mar 22 that it will make 1,054 non-permanent contract workers regular employees from May 1. It currently has a total of 2,916 non-regular employees. SMG will allocate 6.2 billion won to pay the increased salary costs for this year. The change is one of Mayor Park Won-soon’s three key [...]

In a move that will benefit about 47.5 lakh women registered as domestic workers in India, the Women and Child Development (WCD) ministry has decided to include them under the Protection of Women against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill, 2010. The original bill, introduced in Lok Sabha in 2010 did not include domestic workers under [...]

Some of Thailand’s top garment companies will move their operations to Burma in the coming year, said Mizzima news. At least six leading garment manufacturers plan to set up shop to take advantage of lower wages by the second half of the year, according to an article in The Nation newspaper on Saturday. The companies [...]

THE labour movement is regrouping its 61 unions into key industry clusters, so they can better help workers boost their productivity – and ultimately raise their wages. The move, in line with a national push for economic restructuring, will allow unions to come up with training and programmes that are tailored to the needs of [...]