Trade Unions in China by Pringle Tim

Author:Pringle, Tim
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Informal strikes and formal dispute resolution

In presenting her ‘protests against discrimination’ analysis of migrant worker protests, Lee gives us a road map of labour action: ‘These workers resort first to legal activism such as filing petitions and lawsuits for collective labor arbitration, mediation and litigation. Only when this institutionalized channel fails (which it often does) do they resort to public disruption’ (Lee Ching-kwan 2007: 9, author's italics). Lee goes on to draw quite distinct protest strategies between migrant workers and traditional urban workers’ ‘protests of desperation’ in which the former emphasize legal and bureaucratic channels and the latter street action (Lee Ching-kwan 2007: 9–11). In contrast, the evidence presented here demonstrates that Lee's analysis is at best out of date and at worst plain wrong. Especially since 2003 and the onset of labour shortages, migrant workers are as likely to take strike action and/or block the streets as they are to file for collective arbitration. To be sure, migrant workers do use official channels of dispute resolution and are encouraged to do so by the authorities, including the trade union, but this does not exclude other tactics. On the other hand, if Lee's road map takes us down the wrong route, we can chart a development in the protest strategies of migrant workers from protests to well-organized strikes – both of which may or may not have included formal resolution procedures – in which actual existing conditions are the deciding factor no matter which ‘insurgent identity’ the participants may – or indeed, may not – adopt.

Migrant workers’ labour militancy presents us with three main issues: first, who is the target of worker activism; second, the relationship between militant action and legalistic appeals; and third, the efficacy of the dispute resolution system. Of course, the problem underpinning all these issues is how the ACFTU responds to labour unrest.

Do migrant workers in China target employers or the state when they engage in labour actions? Migrant workers’ actions in the 1990s were generally directed at the local labour bureau (Chan 1998). However, during the last seven to eight years there appears to have been a gradual move away from targeting the state to confronting employers directly, with the aim of forcing them to negotiate. I believe this trend was first identified by experienced LNGO researchers and staffers. Parry Leung conducted a survey of newspaper reports on collective labour disputes in the PRD between 2002 and 2005. Leung's data shows that just short of a third of newspaper-reported collective actions by migrant workers took place at the manufacturing site and did not involve street protests. A majority of the 67 protests involved street-level actions, but these were a collective extension of strikes rather than discreet petitions. In comparison with Chan's newspaper translations, the survey reflects a growing militancy: 23 strikes combined with road blocks; 14 strikes and street demonstrations but without road blocks; 16 strikes with no street demonstration; nine demonstrations in or around the enterprise; two detentions of senior managers; one work-in; one hunger strike; and one suicide protest.

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