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Sisters Organising for Themselves: An Exploration of Women-Only Unions in Japan and South Korea

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Kaye Broadbent
Kaye Broadbent*
Affiliation:
School of Industrial Relations, Griffith University
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Abstract

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As early as the 1890s women in a diverse range of countries organised their own unions, some of which continue to the present. Almost a century later, women-only unions have been (re)-created in Japan and South Korea. Was this coincidence or a union organising strategy development in North Asia? What does the existence, and the contemporary formation, of women-only unions in Japan and South Korea mean? This preliminary study seeks to explore women-only unions and highlights women actively creating their own organisations in order to improve working conditions and provide women with a voice separate from the existing ‘malestream’ union movement which has largely ignored their concerns.

Type
Symposium on Alternative Ways of Organising: Asian Labour’s Response to the ‘New’ Globalisation
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , June 2003 , pp. 32 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2003

Footnotes

*

I would like to acknowledge the (former) Centre for Research on Employment and Work, Griffith University for awarding me a research grant to conduct this study.

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