Different Demands, Varying Responses: Local Government Responses to Workers’ Collective Actions in South China

Abstract

While Chinese local governments remain extremely wary of workers’ collective actions, they do not always suppress them; sometimes, they tolerate such actions and even seek to placate workers. What accounts for these different government responses to workers’ collective actions? Based on a sample of over 1,491 collective action cases that took place in Guangdong between 2011 and 2016, we find that the types of demands raised by workers during collective actions affect how local governments respond. Local governments are likely to forcefully intervene in collective actions in which workers make defensive claims concerning issues of payment. In contrast, local governments are likely to use non-forceful approaches in response to actions in which workers make defensive claims regarding social security.

Bottom‐Up Unionization in China: A Power Resources Analysis

“…On the contrary, when they abandoned their institutional demand, the state is willing to use the strategy of substitute concessions to pacify workers making sure they received some economic compensation (see Figure 2). My argument is in line with the observation that the state reacted differently to different types of demands made by workers in collective actions (Yang and Chen 2019).…”

“…2 That said, 'the associational power of the workers is[was] still weak' (Leung, 2015: Chapter 7). According to various studies, the Guangdong and central governments have not totally repressed workers making immediate economic demands (Yang and Chen 2019). Indeed, the state has responded less harshly to worker protests since 2000 (Chen 2006).…”

Strategic fiscal spending: Evidence from China

“…Chen (2019) has also noted that it is usually difficult to boost solidarity among Chinese workers because civic society organizations are not sufficiently strong to support labor activism. Yang and Chen (2020) have suggested that labor strikes driven by narrow economic demands are not politically daunting. These works imply that some labor strikes are not likely to pose threats to the state.…”

From production to reproduction: Pension strikes and changing characteristics of workers’ collective action in China

“…Scholars have maintained that prior to 2010, workers utilised their associational power to pursue immediate economic interests but have since also deployed associational power to form enterprise unions to provide them with workplace institutional power (Hui, 2021a). Third, also focusing on workers’ demands, scholars have differentiated between defensive and offensive actions (Elfstrom and Kuruvilla, 2014; Yang and Chen, 2020). Defensive protests urge employers to fulfil workers’ legal rights, whereas offensive protests strive for treatment beyond minimum legal standards.…”

“…The sociological frameworks of defensive versus offensive action and reactive versus proactive action have informed scholars’ conceptualisations of labour protests in the United States (Martin and Dixon, 2010; Naples, 1987), Canada (Brym et al, 2013), France (Perrot, 1974), Italy (Snyder and Kelly, 1976) and Vietnam (Clarke et al, 2007). Influenced by this tradition, some scholars studying labour activism in China have distinguished between defensive and offensive strikes (Elfstrom and Kuruvilla, 2014; Yang and Chen, 2020) and similarly between rights-based and interest-based protests (Chan, 2011). Scholars have contended that labour resistance in China has transformed from defensive to offensive (Elfstrom and Kuruvilla, 2014) or from rights-based to interest-based (Chan, 2011).…”