Welcome to Asian Labour School

We share critical labour movement skills and knowledge to ground workers, organisers and students in practical organising, and in the history and theory of labour.

Registration is now OPEN for the March-June 2025 semester. Please check out the available courses below. Registration is open until one day before the course starts, or until courses are filled.

What is Asian Labour School

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Course Offers in 2025

Labour, Power and Strategies
Labour, Power and Strategies

Designed for activists, NGO workers, and workers' leaders in Asia with essential skills and knowledge, this course offers a rare opportunity to delve into the fundamentals of labor power and its strategic applications.

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Building A Gender-Inclusive Labour Movement
Building A Gender-Inclusive Labour Movement

Marginalised individuals within the labour movement in Asia need space to discuss the main challenges both in our work and because of our work. This course offers a series of targeted discussions to share our creative ideas for tackling the barriers within the movement.

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Building Democracy through Democratic Facilitation
Building Democracy through Democratic Facilitation

Democracy starts in the smallest conversations, dialogues and meetings by raking in most diverse opinions and ideas, piecing them together to create something new and meaningful to all participants.

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Organising in the Informal Economy
Organising in the Informal Economy

What is the informal economy? We explore different worker’s identities that comprise the sector such as street vendors, home-based workers, waste pickers, domestic workers, and sex workers, and look at the creative ways in which these workers are organizing.

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What Can Myanmar’s Labour History Teach Us?
What Can Myanmar’s Labour History Teach Us?

We put the history and present of capitalist development and labour struggles in Burma/Myanmar into conversation with concepts and arguments in contemporary labour theory.

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What To Do When Your Union Breaks Your Heart?
What To Do When Your Union Breaks Your Heart?

Every worker needs a union, but many workers are disappointed by their union. This course will help you face these heartbreaks and start to transform your union, from the bottom-up.

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What You Need To Know about Asian Labour School

The Asian Labour School is established as an institution of labour movement education in Asia, and an extension of Asian Labour Review. By offering an array of courses on critical movement skills and knowledge, our aim is to cultivate a new generation of workers, activists and students to revitalise mass, democratic and radical labour movements in Asia. The School is for anyone interested in learning to become more effective organisers, or expanding their knowledge of Asian labour movements. We combine skills and knowledge from the movement and in research to help participants to become historically and theoretically informed of our movement.

The Asian Labour School consists of two semesters: from March to May, and from September to November each year. Each course consists of 6 sessions, each session 1.5-hour long and delivered either every week or every two weeks. The class size will be limited to ensure the best learning experience. The courses will be delivered online on Zoom in the evening times in Asia, and the language of instruction is English. Completion of a course may involve a class project that demonstrates the students’ learning, but no examination will be required.

Each semester, we offer a variety of courses on practical and organising skills, history, and theory of labour in Asia. Please take a look at the course descriptions on our website, and register for one or multiple courses. Acceptance is on a first-come, first-serve basis. The course fee is non-refundable.

We do not make a profit from the School, and keep the costs to a minimum. To make the School sustainable and compensate for the labour of the course facilitators to prepare and teach the courses, we charge a fee for each course. We aim to keep the fees to an affordable level and offer two tiers of fees, depending on your ability to pay. For the regular fee, each course is USD$60; for students/workers/unemployed who cannot afford the regular fee, each course is USD$40. You can choose either option at the time of registration. The course fee is non-refundable.

We will be offering 6 courses: "What Can Myanmar’s Labour History Teach Us?", "What To Do When Your Union Breaks Your Heart?", "Building A Gender-Inclusive Labour Movement", "Organising in the Informal Economy", "Labour, Power and Strategies", and "Building Democracy through Democratic Facilitation".
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Become a Skilled Organiser and Informed Strategist with Asian Labour School

Be part of a new generation of activists to build a mass, democratic and radical labour movement in Asia.

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