Protesters in more than a dozen cities in Indonesia demonstrated against proposed changes to the labour law that would make it harder to strike, as workers across Asia held May Day demonstrations for better conditions.
More than 10,000 people in Jakarta rallied against government plans to revise a 2003 labour law that businesses say gave workers so many benefits and so much freedom to organise and strike it dealt a blow to Indonesia's economic competitiveness and attractiveness to investors.
The government and current parliament, elected in 2004, want to amend the law to give employers more flexibility, curb strikes and ease back on severance payments for sacked workers, currently among the world's most generous.
Workers want the law untouched.
"We want to show the leaders that we don't want to succumb to the ways of the foreign investors," a female speaker told a rally in front of the presidential palace.
Similar protests were held in 12 other cities in the world's fourth most populous country, local media reported.
In the Philippines, Labour Day demonstrations passed off peacefully in the capital as thousands of protesters bowed to a heavy security presence, confounding fears of violence from anti-government groups.
A phalanx of police bearing batons and shields pushed back thousands of protestors trying to get to the thoroughfare in Manila leading to the Malacanang presidential complex in sweltering summer heat. The protestors started to disperse voluntarily at 6 pm (1000 GMT), the deadline for rallies to cease.
The crowds at the palace and elsewhere in Manila, which media estimated at around 10,000, waved red flags and banners calling for higher wages, lower fuel prices and the ouster of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
Riot police broke up a peaceful Labour Day march in the Cambodian capital, drawing criticism from rights activists and the opposition who reject the official line that the dispersal was to prevent traffic jams.
Police armed with AK-47 rifles and electric batons chased protesters out of public parks in the centre of Phnom Penh and used fire trucks to block garment workers from gathering outside the National Assembly.
Thousands of Bangladeshi industrial workers took to the streets on Monday to demand higher wages and better working conditions in May Day rallies. Wearing red headbands and carrying banners and placards they marched to the beat of drums and bag-pipers.