Pun Ngai, <i>Migrant Labor in China: Post-Socialist Transformations</i>

Nguyen, Tu Phuong

doi:10.1080/00472336.2016.1197960

Cited by 7 publications

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“…Second, the intergenerational precariousness of rural migrant workers, who regard platform‐based gig work as a rare opportunity to maintain their livelihoods, is exploited by platform capitalism to undermine the bargaining power of drivers (Huang, 2021). The precariousness of these drivers is rooted in the hukou system (Pun, 2015), which transforms the rural population into a labour pool for urbanisation and industrialisation. Moreover, the powerlessness of labour unions in protecting labour rights coincides with the powerful citizenship surveillance system that prevents the mobilisation of workers, thereby consolidating platform despotism (Griesbach et al, 2019) in the Chinese context.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…First, China's hukou (household registration system) causes entrenched inequality and discrimination against migrant workers in labour markets. In this system, migrant workers are forced into a subservient class with inferior political-economic status and are institutionally deprived of citizenship rights in urban areas; thus, dictated to serve as cheap labour for capital accumulation in the post-socialist transformation (Pun, 2015). Second, in the pursuit of economic growth, the Chinese state has historically engaged in a 'race to the bottom' to gain a competitive advantage in the global market.…”

Section: The Context Of App-based Food-delivery Work In Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

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Algorithmic management in food‐delivery platform economy in China

Huang

2022

New Technol Work Employ

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This article investigates the organisation of work under algorithmic control in the platform economy. Based on a 1‐year ethnographic study conducted at top food‐delivery platforms in China, this study finds two main mechanisms for organising labour under algorithmic management: the virtual organisation of labour and algorithm‐driven labour process control. First, platform drivers are reorganised in an outsourced labour force, placed in application‐based virtual‐networked production under sophisticated technological infrastructure. Second, to habituate drivers to the virtual mode of production, food‐delivery platforms utilise four algorithm‐driven control techniques, which are identified as: smart machinery control, information monopoly, management by multi‐stakeholders, and ‘carrots and sticks’. The findings highlight the process of algorithmic design in configuring a digital managerial ecosystem for platform governance and contribute to emerging debates on algorithmic management.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: The Context Of App-based Food-delivery Work In Chinamentioning

confidence: 99%

Algorithmic management in food‐delivery platform economy in China

Huang

2022

New Technol Work Employ

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“…Studies thus frequently adopt a northern-centric perspective, drawing upon conventional south-north migration interpretations and Keynesian welfare assumptions about the capacity for labour protections (Stewart and Garvey, 2015). Unfortunately, even studies making a geographical leap insufficiently theorise how developing countries are subject to radically different historical processes of development, subjugation and class relations which impact on social reproduction and exploitation (Kowarick, 1980;Munck, 2013;De Oliveira, 2006;Pun, 2016). Super-exploitation is not an exceptional condition in countries such as Brazil, and not one that may be overcome by granting full citizenship status, or a better job.…”

Section: Super-exploitation and Migrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unpacking Super-Exploitation in the 21st Century: The Struggles of Haitian Workers in Brazil

Virginio

Stewart

Garvey

2022

Work, Employment and Society

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Emerging patterns of south–south migration and rapid economic growth in developing countries have highlighted the need for new conceptual contributions accounting for the experiences of migrant workers in the Global South. The concept of super-exploitation has been among those contributions with reference to appalling working conditions and the dependence of developing countries on the export of commodities. However, this article argues that the understanding of contemporary forms of super-exploitation experienced by migrant workers remains underdeveloped. Drawing upon 42 semi-structured interviews with Haitian workers in Brazil, this study makes an innovative contribution to the conceptualisation of super-exploitation in the 21st century, particularly from the perspective of social reproduction theory. This article argues that super-exploitation can be defined more accurately as a combination of economic and non-economic forces that entangle productive–reproductive–exploitative relationships, thereby shaping the dependence of workers on wages below the value necessary for their social reproduction.

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“…The integration of productive and reproductive spaces is at the very core of the flexible labour regime deployed in global supply chains. Dormitory labour regime (Pun, 2016) through which this integration is achieved, merges the productive and reproductive spheres in order to enable management to extend control over labour from the factory floor to workers' sleeping and living quarters, thus extracting additional value from workers' 'private' lives. Located in proximity to factories, dormitories combine spaces of work and residence, thus permitting transnational corporations to lengthen the workday and command almost all daily reproduction of labour.…”

Section: Integration Of Production and Reproduction Spheresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forced labour in supply chains: Rolling back the debate on gender, migration and sexual commerce

Andrijasevic

2021

European Journal of Women's Studies

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This article makes a conceptual contribution to the broader literature on unfree labour by challenging the separate treatment of sexual and industrial labour exploitation both by researchers and in law and policy. This article argues that the prevailing focus of the supply chain literature on industrial labour has inadvertently posited sexual labour as the ‘other’ of industrial labour thus obfuscating how the legal blurring of boundaries between industrial and service labour is engendering new modalities of the erosion of workers’ rights that are increasingly resembling those typical of sex work. This article advances the debate on unfree labour both conceptually and empirically. Conceptually, it highlights the relevance of social reproduction in understanding forms of labour unfreedom. Empirically, it demonstrates the similarities in forms of control and exploitation between sex work and industrial work by illustrating how debt and housing operate in both settings.

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Pun Ngai, Migrant Labor in China: Post-Socialist Transformations

Cited by 7 publications

References 0 publications

Algorithmic management in food‐delivery platform economy in China

Algorithmic management in food‐delivery platform economy in China

Unpacking Super-Exploitation in the 21st Century: The Struggles of Haitian Workers in Brazil

Forced labour in supply chains: Rolling back the debate on gender, migration and sexual commerce

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