Ng Sek Hong

Transition to more cooperative and consensual pattern of labour-management relations: Singapore and Hong Kong compared

In recent years, labour-management relations in Hong Kong and Singapore appear to have been shifting away from confrontation towards cooperation. This paper examines the relative contributions of thelaissez-faire and the State approaches to this development, and proposes that a collaborative industrial partnership might take different forms in the two societies.

Workers’ Industrial Militancy and Dependency Upon the State: The Paradox of Industrial Relations in Hong Kong

This article examines how industrial relations have evolved during the last 10 years since Hong Kong became a special administrative region (SAR) in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). There have been recent signs that Hong Kong workers may seek to more vigorously defend their collective interests and articulate their demands for protecting their wages and employment conditions. This was illustrated recently by an almost unprecedented case of worker militancy waged by the bar benders in a declining branch of the building and construction industry. This article examines the degree to which this case exemplifies the post-1997 industrial relations in Hong Kong, and suggests that the SAR administration should pay greater attention to the grassroot grievances among workers in Hong Kong.

Globalization and Hong Kong's labour market: the deregulation paradox

The globalization of business has affected Hong Kong, giving rise to important changes in its labour market and with impacts on workers and labour organizations. This has been felt in the migration of manufacturing plants to China in combination with labour market deregulation via the governments guest worker policy. We examine the institutional implications of liberalizing the previous ban on the admission of guest workers. While this seeming reversal was tantamount to deregulation, it also produced regulation via a new body of norms and rules governing guest labour which were, paradoxically, restrictive and disabling for the affected parties.

Setting Out the Issues

Why study Chinese trade unions and their role vis-a-vis management? There are several possible answers to this question. First, the Chinese economy is not only currently the fastest growing in the world but may also soon to gain economic ‘superpower’ status (Lardy, 1994).1 Second, China has the world’s largest industrial and aggregate labour force (Nolan, 1995). Third, it also has the largest trade union organization found in a single country (Warner, 1995). Fourth, since the demise of the former Soviet Union, it remains the last major example of a Leninist ‘transmission-belt’ model of trade unionism (Chan, 1995). There are no doubt many other reasons that could be adduced to study this phenomenon: we shall return to these later.

Outside the Mainland: Trade Unions and Management in Three Overseas Chinese Societies

This chapter sets out to sketch a profile of trade unionism as it has evolved in three predominantly overseas Chinese societies in East Asia, located on the fringe of the Mainland, in what has sometimes been called ‘Greater China’ and sharing basic Chinese values (see Bond, 1986; Bond and Hwang, 1986; Shenkar and Ronen, 1987; Lockett, 1988; Whitley, 1990). They are namely, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. Each of these three societies has captured the world’s attention as a case of successful industrialization within the regional league of the East Asian newly industrialized economies (NIEs) (see Redding, 1990). Their industrial experiences of organized labour provide an interesting comparison to what has been documented in the preceding chapters about the labour movement in the PRC, as canvassed from either a historical or a contemporary perspective.Such a comparative glimpse on trade unionism in these four societies(including the Mainland) is hoped to reveal some preliminary evidence onfirst, the propensity of Chinese trade unionism towards a ollaborative stance, vis-a-vis an adversarial one, in approaching management and employers in the workplace; and second, its aptitude, within the labour movement itself, for ‘unitary’ or alternatively ‘pluralistic’ unionism within a ‘corporatist’ contest.

The Chinese Labour Movement After 1949

The organized labour movement in China had come into existence prior to the establishment of the Communist Party in 1921 and unions had been active even before the turn of the century (see Chesneaux, 1969). As industrialization had been confined to the coastal areas and especially the large cities such as Canton (now Guangzhou), Hong Kong, Shanghai and Tientsin (now Tianjin), it is not surprising that the early workers’ organizations had started their life there (see Guillermaz, 1972; Chan 1981; Chen 1985 for further details).In China, the formal national union structure goes back to the early 1920s (see Littler and Lockett, 1983) with the setting up of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) in 1925 in Canton.

Trade Unions and Management in China and Their Legal Context

Foreign capital has re-entered China for almost 20 years now, since it was admitted in the late 1970s when Deng Xiaoping launched the ambitious ‘Four Modernizations’ and opened up the economy through the ‘Open Door’ policy to investment by sources from outside the country. In retrospect, the foreign-funded enterprises, including the joint ventures (JVs), have been a pioneering force not only on the frontier of productivity and technological innovations (see Vogel, 1991) but also in managerial and labour reforms for a China now in search of a new realm of ‘market socialism’. After these years of experiments to advance ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’, the question worth investigating is whether the once ‘enclaved’ practices adopted in these foreign-owned enterprises will be increasingly emulated by their ‘native’ counterparts in the state-owned sector, now in a vigorous process of restructuring and rationalization, as suggested by the thesis of ‘institutional convergence’ brought about by the unifying imperative of ‘industrialism’.

The ACFTU’s Evolving Role

As we have seen in the previous chapter, the legacy of the past weighs very heavily on the present strategy and structure of Chinese trade unions. Therefore, the direction and shape of the ACFTU cannot be fully seen in isolation from its origins and historical context, the most recent, post-1949 background having been set out in detail in Chapter 2. The historical dimension is built into not only their strategic goals but also their structure and function.1 As Leung (1988) observes: The current function and importance of Chinese trade unions can only be understood in the context of the development of the Chinese labour movement. Trade unions evolved in the midst of the immense social upheavals which shaped modern China.

Trade Unions and Management in the State- Owned Enterprise Sector

As has been made clear earlier, Chinese trade unions largely represent workers in the state-owned sector (and related urban collective enterprises) as opposed to the other parts of the economy. Given the nature of the relatively recent industrialization of the economy, this description is not surprising. There has been a significant institutional time lag, thus causing the official representational bodies to be currently out of ‘synch’ with the most recent structural changes in the economy and labour force. Given the latest phase of the economic reforms since the early 1990s (see Table 5.1), we shall argue that even in the state-sector there is a management- union ‘crisis’ in the making. The primacy of the state-sector cannot be underplayed in the context of union power in the PRC. State-owned enterprises (‘owned by the whole People’, in the official jargon) have long been the main pillars of Chinese industry.