Challenges of Globalisation: the case of Korean investments in the UK - April 1996

As we approach the end of the century, traditional views of relations between Europe and Asia are being challenged by new realities.

In the past, concern for workers centred on exploitative practices by northern transnational corporations operating in the South. But East Asia, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea all have their own transnationals. In their search for profitable investments and cheap labour, these corporations are establishing production not only in their poorer Asian neighbours and in Latin America, but also in Europe.

For many years, trade unionists in the United Kingdom and Ireland have viewed low wages and poor working conditions in East Asian manufacturing industries as a threat to jobs and labour standards at home. Today, unemployment in the UK and Ireland has forced wages down and reduced trade union bargaining power. This, plus financial incentives offered by governments keen to create more jobs, means that the UK and Ireland have become attractive options for inward investment by Korean and other East Asian transnationals.

News that employees of a Korean transnational in Northern Ireland were receiving lower pay then their counterparts in Korea prompted CIIR to organise a seminar to consider the implications of the new investment trends for European and Korean trade unionists and development NGOs.

This report presents some Korean, British and Irish perspectives on these developments from trade unions, NGOs and local government.

1996 ISBN: 1 85287 161 X
17pp