Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T11:21:59.394Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - Recipes for Resistance

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 January 2021

Manfred Elfstrom
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia, Okanagan
Get access

Summary

Before we can examine the consequences of China’s rising worker resistance, we must explore the recipes for resistance that drive it. Why and how Chinese labor mobilizes have already been the focus of a rich body of literature. In this chapter, I will first very briefly summarize the key characteristics of Chinese industrial relations and then review the scholarship that has been conducted to date, emphasizing how perspectives on workers in China have changed over time, from pessimism to guarded optimism and back again, while highlighting certain key themes in the research, such as extreme exploitation, workplace arrangements that facilitate and frustrate organizing, the unique constraints and opportunities of migrant workers, and concerns over informal and flexible work. Then, I will introduce a fresh typology of different forms of activism distinguished by the varying level of pressure that they bring to bear on the state. Specifically, I will identify certain combinations of demands, tactics, and organizations as contained, boundary-spanning, or transgressive. Next, I will provide evidence that boundary-spanning and transgressive mobilization are on the rise. Strikes, protests, and riots are increasing more quickly than formally adjudicated employment disputes; workers are claiming more than the bare minimum of what Chinese law guarantees them, and new organizations, such as movement-oriented labor NGOs and leftist student networks, are entering the fray.

Type
Chapter
Information
Workers and Change in China
Resistance, Repression, Responsiveness
, pp. 21 - 45
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×