This work is concerned with two main issues: emerging trends in industrial relations systems in the member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), and inter-country variations in the systems of industrial relations of these countries. The purpose of addressing these issues is to work out a basis for reflecting on prospects for co-operation among the member countries of ASEAN in the field of industrial relations.

ASEAN is an association of five Southeast Asian countries, namely. Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. It has experienced a healthy development in its less than two decades of existence. The member nations have defined and redefined the scope of their common interest over the years. They have identified various areas for co-operation, and have actively promoted the idea of regionalism. The area of labour and industrial relations has also come under the purview of ASEAN in the last few years.

A regional approach to labour and industrial relations has become an important theme to the governments, labour and employers in the ASEAN countries. This approach has the undertone of being different in mode and method from that prevalent in the more developed countries. The ASEAN Labour Ministers Meetings, the ASEAN Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), and the ASEAN Confederation of Employers (ACE) are the formal organizations through which this concern is being expressed, and plans of action for co-operation and co-ordination in the field of labour and industrial relations are being proposed. The idea of seeking common ground for co-operation in this area is a welcome one. But we should note with some frustration that not much concrete progress has been made in this respect yet.

Since co-operation or integration or convergence is facilitated by similarities and prohibited by dissimilarities in national industrial relations systems of member countries, the extent of their diversities and their enduring nature will ultimately determine the scope for co-operation. It becomes, therefore, necessary to examine, firstly, the emerging trends in or patterns of evolution of the industrial relations systems of the member countries, and then to look at the enduring nature of the variations among them.

National industrial relations systems are the products of interactions between actors and environments.