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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 July 2019
This article explores how workers’ diets and meal services at factory canteens became the nucleus of labour politics in Republican Shanghai, China's industrial heartland. At the heart of Chinese labour politics was a demand for the improvement of workers’ diets, particularly for adequate meal service, which was to be provided by management at a reasonable price—if not for free—at the workplace. The purpose of this article is not only to draw attention to a lacuna in Chinese labour history, but also to shed new light on the agency of workers in their labour disputes from the perspective of food history. No other issue provided a better opportunity to unite workers, labour activists, and so-called scabs than the issue of food. In the wake of labour disputes, industrialists changed their perception of the relation between industrial health and work efficiency. With the promotion of factory canteens, the Guomidang Nationalists also began to exert unsparing efforts to garner the growing political potential of the labour force. Therefore, factory canteens evolved into a contested space in which workers, management, and the state offered different visions of workers’ diets and industrial productivity.
Early drafts of this research project were presented at the conferences, workshops, and colloquiums held at the Association for Asian Studies, Cambridge University, Harvard-Yenching Institute, History of Science Society, Social Science History Association, and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. I am grateful to all participants and the anonymous reviewer for Modern Asian Studies for their helpful feedback and suggestions. I acknowledge the generous support of the Ministry of Education, Singapore, the Faculty of Arts and Social Science, National University of Singapore, and Jing Brand Fellowship of Needham Research Institute, Cambridge University. I am also deeply grateful to all those working hard at the Arts Canteen, NUS campus, for inspiring this project.
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32 This type of employee numbered approximately 130,000 to 140,000. See Zhu, B. et al. Shanghai chanye yu Shanghai zhigong, p. 621.
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42 Yuan, S. (1920), ‘Shanghai migui bagong de qingxing’ (Rice strike in Shanghai), Laodong jie, (1), no. 1, pp. 7–9Google Scholar; (2), no. 2, pp. 4–9; (3), no. 3, pp. 9–12; (4), no. 4, pp. 7–9.
43 The standoff lasted longer than expected because management called in the riot police to arrest the leaders of the strike. However, this attempt outraged the workers and made them more recalcitrant. Yuan, S. ‘Shanghai migui bagong de qingxing’, (2), pp. 6–7.
44 SB, 4 Jul. 1920; SB, 6 Jul. 1920.
45 One agitator whose identity was unknown but who was responsible for damage to the factory facilities was sentenced to three weeks in detention. See Chen, D. (Chen, T.) (1929), Zhongguo laogong wenti (Labour problem in China), Shanghai: Shangwu yinshuguan, pp. 172–173; Shanghai shizhengfu shehuiju. Shanghai shi laozi jiufen tongji, pp. 44–45.
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69 SB, 19 Feb. 1927.
70 See Ashizawa, C. (2007), ‘Zaikabō no fukuri kōsei: Naigai men Shanhai kōjō no jirei wo tegakari toshite’ (Japanese-owned cotton mills in China and their factory welfare: the case of the Naigai Cotton Mill Company), Chūgoku kenkyū ronsō, 7, pp. 31–33.
71 MGRB, 12 Aug. 1926.
72 Frederic Taylor's Principles of Scientific Management (1911) was first translated and introduced to China in 1916. Taylorism became popular by the late 1920s and early 1930s, during which Chinese entrepreneurs enthusiastically tried to apply it to their management practices. For Fordism, the first Chinese translation of Henry Ford's My Philosophy of Industry came out in the second half of the 1930s. See Feng, X. ‘Kexue guanli, laozi chongtu, yu qiye zhidu xuanze’, pp. 11–12; Gao, C. (2008), ‘Kexue guanli gaige yu laozi guanxi: yi Shenxin sanchang yu Minsheng gongsi wei zhongxin’ (Scientific management reform and the relationship between management and labour: in the cases of the Shenxin No. 3 Mill and Minsheng Compnay), Zhongguo jingjishi yanjiu, 3, pp. 68–69Google Scholar; Liu, W. (2001), Jindai Zhongguo qiye guanli sixiang yu zhidu de yanbian (Thoughts on business management and system changes in modern China), Taipei: Guoshiguan, pp. 84–99Google Scholar.
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82 Pan Gongzhan, Chief of the Municipal Bureau of Social Affairs, declared that the bureau would protect the registered unions and their demands if they were legitimate interest (zhengdang zhi liyi). In 1935, for example, the GMD furnished a canteen for rickshaw pullers registered the party-controlled rickshaw puller's association. Pan, G. (1930), ‘Shanghai tebieshi shehuiju zhi zuzhi ji gongzuo’ (Organization and activity of Bureau of Social Affairs of the Shanghai Special Municipality), Nüqingnian, 9:5, p. 86Google Scholar; SB, 12 Sep. 1932; SB, 16 Apr. 1935.
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86 In the memorial issue for the International Women's Day on 8 March 1930, for example, the communist-controlled magazine Laodong headlined an article ‘Shanghai female workers’ general demands’, in which the author argued that factory canteen should be provided by the management and this demand would be a good step to fend off the yellow unions that the GMD controlled. See ‘Shanghai nügong zong yaoqiu’ (Shanghai female worker's general demands), Laodong, 26 (1930).
87 NCH, 26 Jun. 1926.
88 SB, 12 Jun. 1930.
89 Shanghai shizhengfu shehuiju. (1931), Shanghai minshi wenti (Food problem in Shanghai), Shanghai: Shizhengfu shehuiju, p. 218.
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94 In the contemporary CCP members’ skilful forging of ‘revolutionary tradition’, as Elizabeth Perry argues, the strikers’ memories of the first victory in their labour dispute of 1922 in the small coal-mining town Anyuan were tremendously important. For a vivid recollection of miners’ experiences of the strike victory and the subsequent improvement of meal quality in miners’ cafeterias, see Perry, E. (2012), Anyuan: Minging China's Revolutionary Tradition, Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 74–75Google Scholar.