Do More Strikes Mean a Stronger Working Class's Agency: A Comparative Study in Post-Socialist China

Abstract

Workers’ agency is important to understand the Chinese working class's formation and gauge its capacity to forge transformative social and political movements. Recent labor study literature posits that class inequality and volatile capital movement leads to stronger labor resistance in post‐socialist China. Drawing on some of the theories on class consciousness and agency, this article re‐conceptualizes workers’ agency, which is broken down into behavioral and cognitive agencies. It examines Chinese workers’ cognitive agency in the megacities and lower‐tier cities via statistical survey data. This analysis of cognitive agency is new to the Chinese labor study. I argue that a relatively low class identification, poor understanding of democracy and politics, and weak sense of solidarity combine to reveal a new working class in post‐socialist China that, in general, shows both weak cognitive agency and growing conservativism. This distinction of workers’ behavioral and cognitive agency is vital as it may eventually challenge all labor interest parties to re‐think their current strategies of labor engagement and organization.

The cycle of commodification: migrant labour, welfare, and the market in global China and Vietnam

“…The Chinese labour cost in the final manufacturing part takes only about 1.8% of the selling price, while supplier Foxconn pockets 14.3% and Apple itself 58.5% (Kraemer et al, 2011 : 5). Meanwhile, global capital movement chasing cheap labour and new market can lead to the rise and fall of industrial centres, such as Shenzhen since 1980s and Bac Ninh since 1990s, alongside the growth and decline of the working class population (Lin, 2017 ; Silver, 2003 ). As wages are rising in China, corporations seek to relocate investment to other Southeast Asian countries where cheaper labour can still be found, Vietnam being one key destination, or they replace jobs with automation (Lin, 2020 : 220).…”

Layers of union organising and representation: the case study of a strike in a Japanese‐funded auto plant in China

“…). Collectively, these studies have highlighted the Chinese workers’ growing awareness of rights and interests and assertiveness in pursuing them, although this awareness has not yet grown into class consciousness sufficient to provide ‘class agency for social and political change’ (Lin , 86). Extant studies have also assessed the implications of the strikes for trade union reforms (e.g.…”

“…The erosion of real wage (basic wages, bonuses and welfare benefits) growth, compared to the growth of national GDP and company profit, and poor working conditions, such as excessive overtime work, have been the main sources of workers’ grievance that has led to the rising level of labour disputes since the late 1990s (e.g. Cooke , 2013; Lee ; Lin ). In 2008 the government enacted the Labour Contract Law and the Labour Disputes Mediation and Arbitration Law in an attempt to regulate labour relations (Cooke ).…”

The Emerging Industrial Relations of China. William Brown, Chang Kai, eds. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2017. 250 pp. $110 (hardcover)

“…However, workers agency, particularly the formation and sustainability of it, do not just follow naturally when work conditions deteriorate. As a political actor, workers' agency involves complex behavioral and psychological processes in response to external conditions (Lin, ; Pun & Lu, 2010). These less‐known aspects of workers agency are challenging and require further study with a renewed approach, theoretical, and methodical innovation in the field.…”