Taiwanese Workers Have Shown Us How to Gain Ground in the Neoliberal Era
Taiwan’s working class has been able to make significant gains in recent decades despite the pressures of economic liberalization. That’s because its unions have received crucial support from a wider network of social movements and advocacy groups throughout the country.
Student protests in Taiwan in March 2014. (Flickr / Wikimedia Commons)
The global labor movement is facing headwinds on many fronts, and Taiwan is no exception to this rule. Yet the island nation’s labor movement has been able to make steady progress in terms of legal protection and a fairer distribution of income in recent times. How can we account for this success?
One key factor has been the support for Taiwanese workers from a wider network of social movements and advocacy groups. This has created the space for working-class gains even at a time when the pressures of deindustrialization and offshoring have been making it harder for organized labor to impose itself on employers.
A close study of the Taiwanese example could offer some important lessons for labor activists in how to advance their struggles for rights and redistribution during the neoliberal era.
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