Chris King-Chi Chan

The Dynamics and Dilemma of Workplace Trade Union Reform in China: The Case of the Honda Workers’ Strike:

Based on a case study of the Honda workers’ strike and its impact on workplace industrial relations, this article explores the potential of and barriers to workplace trade union reform in China. A rise in workers’ collective actions has put political pressure on the All China Federation of Trade Unions to promote effective trade unionism and create a vital foundation for exercising democratic union representation in the workplace. The main barrier to effective workplace unionism, however, is the lack of external support for workers’ unionization efforts. On the one hand, the lower-level local trade unions fail to comply with their legal responsibility because of their bureaucratic nature and structural integration into the patron–client relationship between the local state and the global capital. On the other hand, support for workers from civil society is handicapped by the party-state’s opposition to independent labour organizing. This dilemma has forced the higher trade union federation to intervene directly in workplace trade union reform and promote state-led wage bargaining.

The Development of Collective Bargaining in China: From “Collective Bargaining by Riot” to “Party State-led Wage Bargaining”

2010 was a turbulent year for labour relations in China. The wave of strikes sparked by the Honda workers has highlighted the urgent need for trade union reform and workplace collective bargaining. In response to this turbulence, the Chinese government has stepped up efforts to promote the practice of collective bargaining, which had been neglected under the existing “individual rights-based” labour regulatory framework. In the midst of rapid social and policy changes, this article aims to examine the effect of labour strikes on the development of collective bargaining in China. The authors argue that, driven by growing labour protests, the collective negotiation process in China is undergoing a transition, from “collective consultation as a formality,” through a stage of “collective bargaining by riot,” and towards “party state-led collective bargaining.” This transition, however, is unlikely to reach the stage of “worker-led collective bargaining” in the near future.

The Role of the State, Labour Policy and Migrant Workers' Struggles in Globalized China

The financial crisis of 2008 brought many changes to the world economy with China seeming to stand out as one of the countries best able to weather the storm. There is a general belief that this is because China has a strong state which has reshaped the role of China in the new international division of labour and has the ability to resume its economic development internally. Our study of labour policy and workers’ struggles tells a different story. We argue that the state-driven process of economic globalization has created a new millions-strong working class in China. A paradoxical phenomenon is that this state-driven process in economic globalization has been accompanied by a state retreat process in the areas of social reproduction and social protection. This state withdrawal process largely shapes a specific pattern of proletarianization of Chinese labour and a specific capital-labour relationship which contribute to recent, and intensifying, migrant workers’ struggles in China.

Contesting Class Organization: Migrant Workers’ Strikes in China's Pearl River Delta, 1978–2010

This article analyzes the process of working-class formation under the ongoing industrialization in China by studying how the trade union has been contested by migrant workers in their strikes in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) over the past three decades. The cases presented here are emblematic of workers’ struggles that have aroused public attention in the specific period of analysis. The author suggests that the trade union as a class organization has been a contested domain for migrant workers’ struggles in the PRD. Through their collective actions, workers’ class consciousness and strategies towards class organization have steadily advanced in the process of China’s integration into the global economy.

Bringing Class Struggles Back: A Marxian Analysis of the State and Class Relations in China

ABSTRACT This article finds both the ‘weakening-state’ hypothesis of neo-liberalism and the ‘state as autonomous actor’ approach adopted by many current China studies dissatisfying towards an understanding of the Chinese state. The authors have therefore conducted a Marxian investigation of the Chinese state. We argue that the state is socially embedded; it is the field and condensation of class struggle. The gulf separating global capital and internal migrant workers on interests such as wage standards, pensions, and other labour regulations in China is a major form of class struggle, which continues to shape the state’s policies and behaviours. The attack on Chinese workers by global capital after the global economic crisis in 2008 precipitated a new wave of migrant worker protests and contributed to their articulation of worker demands on the Chinese state. To substantiate these arguments, we examine the (global) capital and (migrant) labour relations during and after the global economic crisis in 2008, with detailed analysis of the Honda strike and Yue Yuen strike, which took place in 2010 and 2014, respectively. The central theme is that the Chinese state’s development and labour policies can be fully comprehended only by bringing class struggle back into the analysis.

Active labour market policies in China – towards improved labour protection?

This article offers a critical evaluation of the development of labour market policies in China. It argues that although active labour market policies (ALMPs) in China have been extended in response to the changing labour market and emerging labour conflicts, they have not replaced passive labour market policies (PLMPs). While the laid-off state-owned enterprise (SOE) workers’ protests have compelled the government to introduce ALMPs targeting the SOE workers in the 1990s, protection of rural-to-urban migrant workers is minimal. In recent years, however, both ALMPs and PLMPs have been extended to migrant workers due to the recurrence of labour shortages. This, however, has led to new problems such as the massive exploitation of student interns. The impact of ALMPs on the migrant workers’ rights is uncertain due to the patchy implementation and a lack of monitoring to policies enforcement.

Social security policy in Hong Kong: from British colony to China's special administrative region

Chapter 1 List of Tables Chapter 2 Abbreviations Chapter 3 Preface Chapter 4 Chapter One: Hong Kong Social Policy and Chinese Welfare Ideologies Chapter 5 Chapter Two: Co-Optive Politics and Welfare Constraints Chapter 6 Chapter Three: Legitimacy and Chinese Welfare Ideologies Chapter 7 Chapter Four: Traditional Chinese Welfare Ideologies Chapter 8 Chapter Five: Social Security and Chinese Welfare Ideologies Before 1945 Chapter 9 Chapter Six: Social Security and Chinese Welfare Ideologies: 1945-1967 Chapter 10 Chapter Seven: Social Security and Chinese Welfare Ideologies: 1968-1997 Chapter 11 Chapter Eight: Postcolonial Polity and Welfare Approach Chapter 12 Chapter Nine: Postcolonial Social Security and Chinese Welfare Ideologies Chapter 13 Chapter Ten: Chinese Welfare Ideologies and Hong Kongs Capitalism Chapter 14 Bibliography Chapter 15 Index

The shifting boundary between work and welfare – a review of active labour market policies in Hong Kong

Work and self-reliance are the core values of neo-liberalist Hong Kong society. When the economy was booming, finding a job was not an issue. The real challenges began in the late 1990s due to successive economic crises which led to the adoption of active labour market policies. While social security protection has been provided for the unemployed, workfare and new programmes to encourage employment have been introduced, forming a link between passive and active labour market policies. Ideologically, there has been a further swing from passive welfare protection to active work promotion as the solution to unemployment. However, the passive welfare provision has not been drastically reduced. Expenditure has been maintained, not due to a lack of government resolve but because of the severity of the problems. Furthermore, pragmatic concern for social stability and government legitimacy make it difficult for it to be rolled back.

Space in a Social Movement: A Case Study of Occupy Central in Hong Kong in 2014:

Few studies have examined the role of space in social movements. The existing studies have primarily emphasized the physical nature of space (e.g., space as distance) and overlooked other attributes of space, such as space as the materialization of power relations and space as lived experience. In this article, we explore the role of space in social movements based on a case study of the Occupy Central in Hong Kong in 2014. During the protest, the organizers occupied and reconfigured the campuses and mobilized the participants both through and in space. We find that the campus space helped stimulate the feelings and emotions of the students and increased their enthusiasm to participate in the demonstration. The participants were then sent from the campuses (mobilization spaces) to the demonstration spaces where they occupied and transformed the urban public spaces into private spaces, thus leading to contention over and of space with the state powers. Our findings reveal that the campus space is an important resource that organizers can use for mobilization. We also find that the special features of a campus, including aggregation, networks, isolation, and homogeneity, can facilitate the formation of social movements. We argue that the three attributes of space interact with one another in facilitating the social movement. Thus, our findings suggest that space acts as not only the vessel of struggle but also a useful tool and a target of struggle.

The Influence of Overseas Business Associations on Law-making in China: A Case Study

Through an investigation of the Shenzhen Collective Consultation Ordinance and the Guangdong Regulations on the Democratic Management of Enterprises, this article demonstrates how transnational capital in China deploys its associational power alongside its structural economic power to lobby and pressure the national and local governments to advance its own interests. In addition, building upon the ideas of Hall and Soskice about the varieties of capitalism, the authors have developed the concept of “varieties of transnational capital” to account for the differing positions of overseas business associations regarding the two laws. We find that these positions are shaped by two determining factors: a) where the associations are situated in global production chains, and b) the industrial relations model in their home countries.