Trade Unions and the Quadripartite Interactions in Strike Settlement in China

China Quarterly

Volumn , Issue 201, 2010, Pages 104-124

  Chen, Feng ^a  

^a HONG KONG BAPTIST UNIVERSITY   (Hong Kong)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ENTREPRENEUR; GOVERNMENT; LABOR RELATIONS; TRADE UNION;

CHINA;

EID: 77954508222     PISSN: 03057410     EISSN: 14682648     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0305741009991093     Document Type: Article

References (66)

1. Yongshun Cai, State and Laid-off Workers in Reform China (London & New York: Routledge, 2004);
2. Feng Chen, "Industrial restructuring and workers' resistance in China, " Modern China, Vol. 29, No. 3 (2004), pp. 237-62;
3. Ching Kwan Lee, "Pathways of labor insurgency, " in Elizabeth Perry and Mark Selden (eds), Chinese Society: Change, Conflict, and Resistance (London: Routledge, 2003), pp. 41-46;
4. Mary Gallagher, "Use the law as your weapon: institutional change and legal mobilization in China, " in Neil Diamant, Stanley Lubman, Kevin O'Brien (eds), Engaging Chinese Law (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005)
5. and "Mobilizing the law in China: 'informed disenchantment' and the development of legal consciousness, " Law and Society Review, Vol. 40, No. 4 (2006), pp. 783-816.
6. Ngai Pun, Made in China: Women Factory Workers in a Global Workshop (Durham & London: Duke University Press, 2005);
7. Chris King-Chi and Pun Ngai, "The making of a new working class? A study of collective action of migrant workers in south China, " The China Quarterly, No. 198 (2009), pp. 287-303.
8. Feng Chen, "A subsistence crisis, managerial corruption, and labor protest in China, " The China Journal, No. 44 (2000), pp. 41-63
9. and "Privatization and its discontents in Chinese factories, " The China Quarterly, No. 185 (2006), pp. 42-60;
10. Ching Kwan Lee, Against the Law: Labor Protests in China's Rustbelt and Sunbelt (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2006);
11. "The revenge of history: collective memories and labor protests in northeastern China, " Ethnography, Vol. 1, No. 2 (2000), pp. 217-37;
12. and William Hurst and Kevin J. O'Brien, "China's contentious pensioners, " The China Quarterly, No. 170 (2002), pp. 345-60.
13. For the discussion on the legal procedures for labour dispute settlements, see Virginia Harper Ho, Labor Dispute Resolution in China, China Research Monographs, No. 59 (Berkeley, CA: Institute of East Asia Studies, University of California, 2003).
14. For a comprehensive but concise discussion on strikes, see Richard Hyman, Strikes (London: Fontanta Collins, 1977).
15. For this issue, see Feng Chen, "Individual rights and collective rights: labor's predicament in China, " The Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Vol. 40 (2007), pp. 59-79.
16. T. Hanami and R. Blanpain (eds), Industrial Conflict Resolution in Market Economies (Deveter, Netherlands: Kluwer Law and Taxation Publishers, 1984), p. 8.
17. For the judicial process of labour disputes settlements in China, see Gallagher, "Use the law as your weapon" and " Mobilizing the law in China";
18. and Ho, Labor Dispute Resolution.
19. Hanami and Blanpain, Industrial Conflict Resolution.
20. Also see Christian Welz and Timo Kauppinen, "Industrial action and conflict resolution in the new member states, " European Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 11, No. 1 (2005), pp. 91-105.
21. Simon Clarke et al. have discussed the similar situation in Vietnam. See Simon Clarke, Chang-Hee Lee and Do Quynh Chi, "From rights to interests: the challenge of industrial relations in Vietnam, " Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 49, No. 4 (2007), pp. 545-68.
22. For the classic analysis of the tripartite industrial system, see John Dunlop, Industrial Relations System (New York: Holt-Dryden, 1958).
23. For the text of the convention, see http://webfusion. ilo.org/public/db/standards/normes/appl/appldisplayConv. cfm?conv= C144&hdroff=1&lang=EN.
24. Bill Taylor, Chang Kai and Lo Qi, Industrial Relations in China (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2003), p. 210.
25. The official document for the establishment of the "Tripartite Meeting System" can be found at http://old.cin. gov. cn/3f/file/02080905. htm.
26. http://www.acftu.org/template/10005/file.jsp?aid=72428.
27. Simon Clarke, Chang-Hee Lee and Qi Li, "Collective consultation and industrial relations in China, " British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol. 42, No. 2 (2004), pp. 235-54.
28. Simon Clarke and Chang-Hee Lee, "The significance of tripartite consultation in China, " Asian Business Review, Vol. 9, No. 2 (2002), pp. 61-80.
29. State-owned enterprises should not be regarded as a distinct party, as they are still under the effective influence of the government.
30. Feng Chen, "Between the state and labour: the conflict of Chinese trade unions' double institutional identity in the market reform, " The China Quarterly, No. 176 (2003), pp. 1006-28.
31. Strikes unauthorized by trade unions are called "wildcat strikes" in Western industrialized countries and are illegal. Some Chinese labour scholars use the same term to describe strikes in China. However, since Chinese trade unions can never authorize a strike, because there is no legal right to strike, it does not make sense to distinguish "wildcat" and "legal" strikes in the Chinese context.
32. For discussion on the development of Chinese trade unions, see, for example, Anita Chan, "China's trade unions in corporatist transition, " in Jonathan Unger (ed.), Associations and the Chinese State: Contested Spaces (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2008), pp. 69-85;
33. Jude Howell, "All-China Federation of Trade Unions beyond reform? The slow march of direct elections, " The China Quarterly, No. 196 (2008), pp. 845-63;
34. Feng Chen, "Between the state and labour."
35. In the interview, one enterprise union cadre pointed out that there are only two parties in China's labour relations: the government and employers, given that the union is just part of the government. But some Chinese scholars characterize China's labour relations as a "tripartite plus one" (i.e. the government, trade unions, employers plus workers) structure.
36. For discussion on local governments' suppression of popular protests, see Yongshun Cai, "Local governments and suppression of popular resistance in China, " The China Quarterly, No. 193 (2008), pp. 24-42.
37. See Feng Chen, "Union power in China: source, operation, and constraints, " Modern China, Vol. 35, No. 6 (2009), pp. 662-89.
38. Ibid..
39. See Feng Chen, "Between the state and labour."
40. Ruth Collier and David Collier, Shaping the Political Arena (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2002), p. 52.
41. " Dalian kaifaqu waizi touzi qingkuang jieshao" ("An introduction to FDI in the DLDA"), http://www.dufe.edu.cn/news/2005-01/ images/shengwei.doc.
42. FDI from Asia (Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau) accounted for 17.5%, from the United States and Australia 16%, and from Europe 9%. Ibid.
43. Laowugong refer to those people who are not registered residents in cities where they find employment, and are often unskilled workers with a very short or even no contract. The majority of this group of people used to be called "peasant workers" (nongmingong).
44. However, the minimum wage of the DLDA before the strike was 500 yuan.
45. http://www.dda.gov. cn/zwxx/info/792-29441.htm.
46. Zhan Yanhui, "Dalian rizi qiye lianhe bagong shijian diaocha" ("An investigation into strike incidents in Japanese-owned enterprises in Dalian"), Fenghuang zhoukan (Phoenix Weekly), 14 February 2000.
47. For the role of worker leaders in labour protests, see Feng Chen, "Worker leaders and framing factorybased resistance, " in Kevin O'Brien (ed.), Popular Protest in China (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), pp. 88-107.
48. Investigative report by the DLDA Trade Union.
49. Interview, 3 August 2006.
50. Zhan Yanhui, "An investigation into strike incidents."
51. Investigative report by the DLDA Trade Union.
52. Interview, 3 August 2006.
53. Investigative report by the DLDA Trade Union.
54. Interview, 3 August 2006.
55. Interview, 1 August 2006.
56. Zhang Yanhui, " An investigation into strike incidents."
57. Ibid..
58. Interview, 3 August 2006.
59. Interview, 1 August 2006.
60. One of the enterprises hit by the strikes reduced the post-strike wage (700 yuan) to 650 yuan after the government announced the minimum wage. This caused a new strike on 2 August 2006.
61. Ibid..
62. Interview, 3 August 2005.
63. For a discussion on the duration of strikes in some industrialized nations, see Michael Jackson, Strikes: Industrial Conflict in Britain, USA, and Australia (London: Wheatsheaf Books, 1987), pp. 72-75.
64. Being unable to handle "group incidents" would damage their political career.
65. Interview, 1 August 2006.
66. Erik Olin Wright, "Working-class power, capitalist-class interests, and class compromise, " The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 105, No. 4 (2000), pp. 957-1002.