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4. Nanfang ribao, 8 October 1996.Google Scholar

5. Guangdong laodong bao, 17 November 1997.Google Scholar

6. Far Eastern Economic Review, 4 April 1996, p. 19.Google Scholar

7. Calhoun, Craig, Labour and the Failure of Reform in China (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992) p. 28. He maintained that during the Great Leap Forward, the percentage of non-permanent workers nation-wide rose to 30% of the total SOE workforce, dropping to 12–14% at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.Google Scholar

8. Guangdong laodong bao, 10 July 1997Google Scholar. For similar measures in Shanghai and Beijing, see Calhoun, Craig, “Virtual globalization and outcomes for membership: the Chinese case,” Research Monograph Series No. 18 (California: School of Social Science, Center for the Study of Democracy, University of California, Irvine, 1998), pp. 16–17.Google Scholar

9. Minimum wage rates in Guangdong range between 220 and 380 yuan, with the exception of Shenzhen where it is 420 yuan, the highest in the nation. The minimum livelihood allowance for the unemployed and redundant is between 340 and 437 yuan. See Guangzhou ribao, 26 November 1997.Google Scholar

10. Walder, Andrew G., Communist Neo-Traditionalism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986)Google Scholar. For a critique of Walder's over-generalization across types of factory and worker and underestimation of labour's historical agency and activism, see Calhoun, Craig, “State and society in contemporary China,” World Politics, Vol. 41, No. 4 (1989), pp. 579–591Google Scholar. See also Calhoun, Craig, “Transfigured community: neo-traditionalism and work unit socialism in China,” The China Quarterly, No. 126 (1992), pp. 313–332, for a critique of neo-traditionalism's neglect of soft constraints on leadership power. My research finds that these criticisms are valid but also that neo-traditionalism is an apt description from the late 1960s through to the late 1970s. Therefore, this article adheres to the neo-traditionalist model as a benchmark for analysing the changes brought about by reforms, rather than assuming its generalizability to the entire post-1949 period or to all Chinese workers.Google Scholar

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12. This is an ongoing research focusing on the life history, collective memories and remaking of politics among Guangzhou workers. The data used in this paper are based on in-depth interviews, conducted between 1995 and 1997, with workers and managers mainly from several large textile mills, a heavy machinery factory, a camera factory, a pharmaceutical firm and an optical instruments factory. Most of these firms are loss-making and in debt, like 60% of all state industrial enterprises in Guangzhou.Google Scholar

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20. South China Morning Post, 11 July 1998, p. 8.Google Scholar

21. Far Eastern Economic Review, 16 October 1997, p. 62; and 23 October 1997, p. 82.Google Scholar

22. Interview, 28 March 1996.Google Scholar

23. When interviewing workers from a large textile mill, workers repeatedly mentioned the recent suicide of one of their co-workers, due to his inability to pay the medical bills for his chronic illness. See also Far Eastern Economic Review, 16 October 1997, pp. 64–66.Google Scholar

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25. It was reported that in Beijing, a year of tenure was worth 1,200 yuan, and in north-eastern provinces, some bankrupt or loss-making enterprises paid 15,000 to 20,000 yuan to buy off workers' tenure so as to rid the enterprise of all administrative and welfare responsibilities towards its workforce. Workers' dossiers will then be transferred to their individual neighbourhood committees. It is unclear how or whether these workers will be covered by the unified social insurance system. See Huasheng shibao, 16 October 1996.Google Scholar

26. See Calhoun, Craiget al., “Work units and the commodification of housing,” Social Sciences in China (Winter 1997), pp. 28–35.Google Scholar

27. Guangzhou ribao, 10 October 1997.Google Scholar

28. For an argument to break down the private and public analytical divide in European labour studies, see Rose, Sonya O., “Class formation and the quintessential worker,” in Hall, John R. (ed.), Reworking Class (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), pp. 133–166.Google Scholar

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30. Guangzhou ribao, 8 December 1997.Google Scholar

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32. Interview, 13 December 1995.Google Scholar

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41. This pattern concurs with national-level data which shows that in the early 1990s, 43.3% of male “staff and workers” in SOEs were Party members. The corresponding figure for women is only 21.2%. See Calhoun, Craig and Calhoun, Craig, Zhongguo zhigong zhuang-kuang (The Present Conditions of Chinese Workers and Staff) (Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe, 1993), p. 454.Google Scholar

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43. Statistics on housework allocation in the pre-reform era are scarce. Available field observations and documentary evidence, however, strongly support the view that burden of housework fell overwhelmingly on women. See, for example, Calhoun, Craig, Woman-Work, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), pp. 181–18Google Scholar, and readers' letters to the editor in Zhongguo funü (Women in China) in the 1960s. A survey carried out in 1980–81, on the eve of urban reform, indicated that female workers spent 5.3 hours per day on housework, compared with 3.6 hours spent by male workers. Chinese women's housework burden was the heaviest among major socialist and capitalist economics of the time. The researchers argued that the underdevelopment of service industries and the poor quality of public facilities and housing were among the reasons that excessive housework was a widespread social problem in China. See Calhoun, Craig and Calhoun, Craig, “Urban workers' housework,” Social Sciences in China, Vol. 3, No. 2 (1982), pp. 147–165.Google Scholar

44. See Calhoun, Craig, Problems and Development of China's Female Population, p. 89.Google Scholar

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48. Gender differences in job mobility were found in Shanghai and Wuhan in the early 1990s. Whereas men's job switches usually represented career advancement and improved occupational status, women's transfers were mostly horizontal moves to accommodate domestic priorities and life-course events. See Calhoun, Craig, “Job mobility in post-Mao cities: increases on the margins,” The China Quarterly, No. 132 (1992), pp. 1062–1085.Google Scholar

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68. At the end of a number of interviews, workers asked me for legal advice as to whether their factory directors had behaved within the bounds of law – the unions have obviously failed to keep workers updated about their legal rights.Google Scholar

69. For some interview evidence from Guangzhou, see Jude Howell, “Looking beyond incorporation: Chinese trade unions in the reform era” (unpublished manuscript, 1997)Google Scholar. For a discussion of the financial crisis confronted by the ACTUF and basic-level unions, see Calhoun, Craig, “Workers and trade unions under the market economy: perspectives from grassroots union cadres,” Chinese Sociology and Anthropology, Vol. 28, No. 3 (1996), pp. 15, 72.Google Scholar

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74. Interview, 16 November 1996.Google Scholar

75. Fazhibao, 5 July 1997Google Scholar and Guangdong laodong bao, 24 July 1997.Google Scholar

76. In Guangdong, of the estimated 10 million migrant labourers, some 65–75% are women; and 80% of the whole migrant workforce find employment in out-processing factories outside the state sector in the Zhu (Pearl) River Delta (Modern Enterprise Daily, 11 June 1997).Google Scholar

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80. A recent emulation campaign organized by the Women's Bureau of the Guangzhou Federation of Trade Unions made “multi-skill hands” its contest theme. The organizer proudly proclaimed that 43.6% of all Guangzhou women workers were now multi-skilled, compared to only 26% in 1995Google Scholar. Some are even “three-jobs-in-one” workers. See Guangdong laodong bao, 13 March 1997.Google Scholar

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87. “Unemployed” are those who are dismissed from their employment either because of enterprise bankruptcy or reorganization, or the termination of an employment contract. They are entitled to unemployment allowances for a period of up to two years, but their employment relations with the enterprise are severed. “Off-duty” workers are on long leave from their jobs due to inadequate shiftwork or a shutdown in production, and their employment relations with the enterprise are legally intact. Theoretically, during the off-duty period, they are paid a proportion of their basic wage as a living allowance and their enterprise is responsible for diverting them into other employment opportunities or for rehiring them once production conditions allow. Besides this, there are different types of retirees. Although official retirement ages are 50 and 60 for women and men respectively, those within five years of retirement can apply for “sickness-related” or “off-duty retirement,” receiving basic wages without bonuses until they become retirees and are entitled to full pension wages.Google Scholar

88. See, for example, Perry, Elizabeth J., Shanghai on Strike (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993)Google Scholar; Perry, Elizabeth J., “From native place to workplace: labour origins and outcomes of China's danwei system,” in Calhoun, Craig and Perry, Elizabeth J. (eds.), Danwei: Changing Chinese Workplace in Historical and Comparative Perspective (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1997), pp. 42–59Google Scholar; Perry, Elizabeth J. and Calhoun, Craig, Proletarian Power: Shanghai in the Cultural Revolution (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997).Google Scholar

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94. In Calhoun, Craig, Work and Inequality in Urban China (p. 175), this is formulated as the “management-as-redistributor” thesis.Google Scholar

95. Fragmentation can, of course, contribute to labour activism, as Elizabeth Perry has convincingly argued in her work. My argument here does not contradict hers in that my emphasis is on the current configuration of causes which interact with fragmentation, making it an inhibiting factor for sustained and organized labour mobilization.Google Scholar

96. China Labour Bulletin, No. 39, 1997Google Scholar. In Shanxi, another labour activist who urged off-duty workers of SOEs to establish an independent union was also arrested and detained in December 1997: see Ming bao, 18 January 1998Google Scholar. In Hubei and Jilin, agitation for unemployed workers' unions were made by activists and dissidents who were reportedly harassed by public security officials: see Ming bao, 28 December 1997 and 30 January 1998.Google Scholar

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99. The private and individual sectors (especially commerce and services) have accounted for 80% of off-duty workers' re-employment in Guangzhou, whereas collectives and town and village enterprises most commonly provide employment for off-duty workers in big cities such as Shengyang, , Beijing, , Nanjing, and Tsingtao, : see Zhongguo laodong bao, 2 November 1996Google Scholar. Official re-employment rates for the unemployed and off-duty were 60% and 51% respectively in 1997 for the entire province, see Guangdong laodong bao, 7 August 1997. Moreover, the relatively high economic growth rate of the province has created demands for domestic and personal services, a major re-employment channel for the unemployed.Google Scholar

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101. However, it must be emphasized that the so-called privileges supposedly enjoyed by the Chinese state workers were relative and uneven. The absolute standard of living and quality of life have always been low, sometimes bordering poverty, and not all SOEs were able to provide the encompassing set of social and welfare services to their employees. In Guangzhou, for the past half-century, the problem of substandard and inadequate housing has been perennial, afflicting urban residents – state workers included. See survey reports by Guangzhou chengshi diaochadui (Guangzhou City Survey Team), Guangzhoushi zhigong jumin jiatingshenghuo diaochazhuanji 1936–1985 (Collection of Surveys on Family Life of Workers and Residents in Guangzhou 1936–1985) (Guangzhou: Guangzhou Statistical Bureau, 1986).Google Scholar

102. An excellent collection of essays on the changing danwei institution is Calhoun, Craig and Perry, Elizabeth J. (eds.), Danwei: the Changing Chinese Workplace in Historical and Comparative Perspective.Google Scholar

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106. The return rate of migrant workers in major exporting provinces like Sichuan, Jiangxi, Hubei and Anhui reaches 36.4%. In some counties, between one- and two-thirds of newly established rural enterprises are set up by returned migrants. See Huasheng shibao, 6 November 1996.Google Scholar