"Misreading" of the law and the "imagined home" in z factory

Chinese Sociology and Anthropology

Volumn 38, Issue 1, 2005, Pages 3-41

  Xiaoyang, Zhu ^a  

^a PEKING UNIVERSITY   (China)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 31644433914     PISSN: 00094625     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/21620555.2005.11038353     Document Type: Article

References (72)

1. Yang Yanling, Chen Yin'e, and Song Caifa, Guoyou gongye qiye gaige de shijian yu zouxiang (Reform in state-owned industrial enterprises: Implementation and trends) (Shanghai: Huadong shida chubanshe, 2000), 28.
2. Using Santos's metaphor of law as a map to describe the shift from enterprise law to company law, "different types of projection create different legal subjects upon the same social objects.... According to the type of projection adopted, each legal order has a center and a periphery." Boaventura de Sousa Santos, "Law: A Map of Misreading: Towards a Postmodern Conception of Law," Journal of Law and Society 14 (1987): 291-92. Quite clearly under Company Law workers no longer occupy the central position of workers which they held under Enterprise Law.
3. Some believe that the governance structure in China's Company Law takes its model from Japanese commercial law. See Zhang Chengyao, "Gongsi fa yu gongsi zhili jiegou" (Company law and the structure of company governance), Zhongguo jingji kuaixun zhoukan (China economic update weekly), September 29, 2002.
4. Wang Hongyi points out that the company model brought into China during enterprise reform is basically the market-driven model, and one of the areas of abuse in this model stems from the power to control resting in the hands of managers. Control of these abuses in the United States and Great Britain is carried out by introducing the concept of "stakeholder" into company legislation. In other words, Company Law specifies that governance should be adjusted by using a "governance structure of coparticipation." Wang Hongyi, Gongsifa gongneng yu jiegou fa shehuixue fenxi - gongsi lifa wenti yanjiu (The function of company law and structure: A sociological analysis: Studies in company legislation issues) (Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2002), 265-70.
5. Lu Changchong points out that "China's Company Law has not really fully expressed the idea that the worker-participation system is an acceptable arrangement, nor has it established the development of such a trend worldwide." Lu Changchong, "Gongsi zhili jiegou ji xin, lao sanhui guanxi lun" (Company governance structure and the new and old theories of the three-party relationship), Jingji yanjiu (Economic research) 11 (1994): 10.
6. Wu Jinglian, Dangdai Zhongguo jingji gaige zhanlüe yu shishi (Strategy and implementation of economic reform in contemporary China) (Shanghai: Shanghai yuandong chubanshe, 1999), 201.
7. For comparatively well-assembled reports and commentaries concerning these discussions, see "Lang Xianping yinbao guoqi chanquan gaige da taolun" (Lang Xianping sets off a debate about reform in ownership of SOEs), http://finance.sina.com.cn/nz/langvsgu/index.shtml.
8. For an article that deals with this aspect, see Zhu Xiaoyang and Anita Chan, "Zhili shidai zhigong liyi jizhong biaoda de zhiduhua qudao - zhigong daibiao dahui" (SWRC: A formalized channel for expressing workers' interests in the era of governance), Kaifang shidai (Open times) 3 (Guangzhou, 2003): 120-32.
9. What such authors advocate is recognition of the legitimacy of the character of "master" (zhuren) for workers in the enterprises, followed by a buyout through which they are replaced in this position. This approach has been named the "Changsha experience." Enterprise reforms currently promulgated in such areas as Henan province are patterned on the Changsha experience. Nie Zheng'an et al., Guoyou qiye de minyinghua gaige (Privatization reform in SOEs) (Beijing: Zhongguo caizheng jingji chubanshe, 2001), 43.
10. Zhang Jing's research on an SWRC is an exception to this. See Zhang Jing, Liyi Zuzhihua danwei: qiye zhidaihui anli yanjiu (Work unit as organization of interest articulation: A case study of enterprise SWRC) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 2001).
11. See also An Miao and Cui Yi, Gongren jieji xianzhuang yu zhigong daibiao dahui (The current state of the working class and the SWRC) (Shenyang: Liaoning renmin chubanshe, 2000);
12. Zhu and Chan, "SWRC."
13. An example of this is Henan province. Here the provincial government requested that the enterprise reform should be endorsed by the SWRC through voting.
14. The author has currently to hand materials dealing with setting up SWRCs in nonstate or collective-owned enterprises (feigong you qiye) since the mid-1990s in cities and provinces including Shanghai, Heilongjiang, Henan, Qinhuangdao, Hangzhou, Weihai, Liuzhou, Jiangsu, Shenyang, Shijiazhuang, Changzhou, Wuxi, Xuzhou, Huai'an, and Tangshan.
15. When interpreting and explaining laws and regulations (such as the Enterprise Law and Company Law mentioned in this article), local governments and other actors who are involved seem to use what Santos calls "misreading" to do this. Santos, "Law: A Map of Misreading."
16. Field research on the topic "Workplace Governance and Worker Participation" at Z Factory by the Institute of Sociology and Anthropology at Beijing University lasted from July 2003 until June 2004. During this period, we went to the plant four times, each time for approximately a week, to carry out interviews and gather material. The fifty persons interviewed included Z Factory workers, people from relevant departments in the city government, the local trade union, the merger partner, and others who were related to the factory in one way or another. In addition to field research, we also interviewed people in Beijing who had been involved in this case. We gathered materials concerning Z Factory beginning in August 2000, using Internet sources and foreign press reports. The materials concerning Z Factory cited in this article are held by the Institute of Sociology and Anthropology at Beijing University.
17. Z Factory dossier no. 131.
18. Ibid., no. 134.
19. Ibid., no. 131.
20. Ibid.
21. Z Factory dossier no. 26.
22. Ibid., no. 131.
23. Ibid., no. 173.
24. A report from the city government's administrative office reveals that H Company really demanded withdrawal from the merger. The city government work team, however, attempted several times to reconcile the two parties in order to keep the merger intact. Z Factory dossiers, nos. 131 and 173.
25. Z Factory dossier no. 137.
26. Ibid., no. 28.
27. Ibid., no. 133.
28. Ibid., no. 170.
29. Ibid., no. 127.
30. However, Company Law, Article 20, specifies that "in limited liability companies, it shall be composed of between two and fifty stock-holders." To accommodate Company Law, the newly established Z Company was registered with capital of 660,000 yuan registered in the names of thirteen members of the board of directors. It was not until after September 2004 that a disturbance arose concerning its way of registering, with some of the workers' representatives citing "a certain board member using his/her office to misappropriate workers' property" as the reason and submitting a written denunciation to this effect to the city work team. Z Factory dossier no. 201.
31. Zhang, Work Unit as Organization of Interest Articulation, 203.
32. See the provisions in Quanmin suoyouzhi gongye qiyefa (Industrial enterprise law for public-owned enterprises), Section 5, Article 51.
33. Zhang, Work Unit as Organization of Interest Articulation, 203.
34. Ibid.
35. Gongren ribao (Workers' daily), June 3, 1996.
36. Industrial Enterprise Law, Article 44, specifies that the factory head shall be chosen by a governmental department in charge according to the situation of the enterprise in question using one of the following methods: (a) the aforementioned department shall appoint or hire the factory head; and (b) the enterprise SWRC shall make the choice by election. In general, however, the factory head is appointed or hired by the department in charge.
37. Workers' Daily, June 3, 1996.
38. Z Factory dossier no. 11.
39. See Clifford Geertz, Local Knowledge: Further Essays in Interpretive Anthropology (New York: Basic Books, 1983).
40. Such as Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, Department of State, U.S., "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices"(2001), http://usinfo.americancorner.org.tw/archive02/hrchina6.htm.
41. Z Factory dossier no. 104.
42. Ibid., no. 5.
43. Ibid., no. 113.
44. In documents related to the formation and dissolution of the merger written by the Z Factory side, words with which they usually refer to themselves include: employee (zhigong), worker (gongren), working class (gongren jieji), proletariat (wuchan jieji), and so on. In relatively formal reports and materials submitted as plaintiffs, however, people from the Z Factory principally use the term, "employee."
45. Author insert.
46. Z Factory dossier no. 11.
47. This sort of typification of motives being categorized by the local government as "rioting" (dong luan) bears some resemblance to Mary Douglas's mention of the definition of "impurity" (angzang) by the sociocultural system. Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1970).
48. No matter which faction it was, the activists had "Oppose the fraudulent merger, save our plant, and protect our home" at the heart of its slogans.
49. Z Factory dossier no. 11.
50. Here I feel it necessary to mention Alfred Schutz's discussion of self-typification of motives. These discussions of typification of motives and social interaction taken from the tradition of phenomenological sociology were of great help to me in explaining social interaction in the Z Factory antimerger movement. See Alfred Schutz, Collected Papers I: The Problem of Social Reality (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1962), 19-25.
51. Apart from this, the self-typification of motives as a sort of representation can be seen as "key symbols" as conceptualized by Sherry Ortner. See Sherry B. Ortner, "On Key Symbols," American Anthropologist 75, no. 5 (October 1973): 1338-46.
52. Z Factory dossier no. 67.
53. Ibid., nos. 16 and 67.
54. Ibid., no. 11.
55. Ibid.
56. Ron Eyerman and others use the cognitive approach to point out that social movements are a sort of "knowledge-producing social process," a means of disseminating models of knowledge. See Ron Eyerman and Andrew Jamison, Social Movements: A Cognitive Approach (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991).
57. Z Factory dossier no. 164.
58. Ibid., no. 79.
59. Enterprise Law, Chapter 5, Article 52.
60. Z Factory dossier no. 146.
61. From the viewpoint of others engaged in the interaction, typifications of motivation such as "safeguarding the home" seemed justifiable and natural demands, pertaining to undeniable rights, and consequently were different from the "Cultural Revolution" type of collective action.
62. Zhang, Work Unit as Organization of Interest Articulation, 23, 201.
63. Z Factory dossier no. 7.
64. See Z Factory dossiers, nos. 31-42.
65. In the handling of the Z Factory case, the decisions of certain individuals from the city government responsible for state-owned enterprise reform seem to have played a key role in exacerbating the situation.
66. The local government's use of local standards to interpret national law,such as Company Law, establish a precedent for qualification as merger partner, since Company Law has no provision concerning mergers and has no provision stipulating that the merger partner must "show a profit for three consecutive years," yet, as mentioned previously, in the place where Z Factory is located, departments charged with managing enterprise reform in the provincial and city governments all specified requirements that included "showing a profit for three consecutive years" for the merge partner.
67. In the same place at the same time there occurred another instance of workers from a former state-operated enterprise opposing fraudulence in a merger and suing in civil court. Z Factory dossier no. 71.
68. Z Factory dossier no. 9.
69. In the city where Z Factory is located, carrying out "status replacement" (shenfen zhihuan) has already become a method for keeping the workers viably situated during enterprise reform. According to this local government's regulations, the standard for compensating all permanent workers from the former enterprise is to take average pay from the previous year for all workers in the city, multiply by three, divide by thirty, and then multiply by years of service. Z Factory dossier no. 4.
70. An example of this is the SWRC in our case getting decision-making powers while reform was under way. These powers were recognized by the local government, even though they were not in keeping with what was specified in Company Law. According to Company Law, after the merger an enterprise such as Z Factory (a company neither completely state owned nor principally controlled by the state) was not obliged to maintain an SWRC. Additionally, as mentioned above, even if one followed Enterprise Law, the decision-making powers of the state-owned enterprise's SWRC were basically confined to benefits and distribution of wages and bonuses.
71. See Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation: The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957).
72. The words of a Z Factory worker.