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To examine an exceptional case of international labor solidarity and advocacy in a nontraditional labor-receiving country of South Korea.

Ethnographic research on migrant advocacy organization in Korea from its inception in the mid-1990s to the present; theoretical and comparative review of literature on migrant labor mobilization, with a focus on labor unions and migrant advocacy organizations.

The significance of the Korean case is that there are an unusually high number of migrant advocacy organizations that increasingly espouse an internationalist ideology. Furthermore, their effectiveness and sustainability rest on embedded solidarity networks across a spectrum of progressive labor and civic organizations.

The chapter underscores the agentic power of society’s vulnerable populations, such as undocumented immigrant workers, despite the market-driven forces of globalization that disrupts communities and disciplines workers. Embedded solidarity with migrants from a transnational perspective adds to the much-needed discussion about global protests in the context of globalization and neoliberalism.

At global fora which discuss the regulation of international migration the Philippine government is typically hailed a “good practice example” for its institutional as well as legal framework and proactive interest in the welfare of its citizens. The Philippine history of migration policy making is indeed shaped by a shift from “exporting workers” to an increasingly comprehensive rights-sensitive approach that addresses most aspects of migration: the regulation of recruitment agencies, pre-migration training, insurance systems, overseas voting rights, consular services, social rights of the left behind, and re-integration of returned migrants. This state of affairs, however, has not always been like that and is largely the result of activism by the vibrant migrant rights movement in the Philippines which reaches across the world. The case of the Philippine also shows mixed approaches to government-social movement relations, characterized by both pressure politics and critical engagement.

Considerable gaps and loopholes remain in this web of rights-based policy aspects. Structural weaknesses are major problems that need to be addressed if labor migration is to evolve into a truly choice-driven economic decision. Still, comparatively and historically speaking, the Philippines have come a long way. The combined effects of leadership from below and leadership from above had led to some concrete results – even if far from perfect – in the betterment of many migrants’ lives.