The Yue Yuen Strike: Industrial Transformation and Labour Unrest in the Pearl River Delta

Abstract

In April 2014, approximately 40,000 workers stalled production at Yue Yuen (YY) Gaobu, a shoemaker, in Guangdong, China. We identify three reasons for the strike: First, China’s rise is leading to a wave of capital relocation to lower wage countries. Accordingly, YY Gaobu faces increasing pressure, which contributes to a deterioration of working conditions to save costs. Second, the Chinese Communist Party’s anti-corruption campaign is creating new spaces for YY workers to push their demands. Third, there are increased worker protests regarding social insurance payments. Therefore, the strike is paradigmatic, because class composition (middle-aged migrant workers) and demands (social insurance) differ from earlier conflicts. Drawing on the theoretical framework of World-Systems Analysis and in-depth field research, we conclude that the strike will have a lasting effect on Chinese labour relations, because of its focus on social insurance.

Keywords:

• China
• labour relations
• social insurance
• conflict
• global value chains

Notes

1 In an interview with the president of a Hong Kong industrial federation, he stated that ‘rising labour costs for the past five or six years’ are forcing Hong Kong's industrialists to seek further investment possibilities for ‘a second factory abroad’ (int25r); some of our interviewees in the PRD's export industry made similar statements.

2 A number of respondents who are entrepreneurs in Dongguan reported that state control has increased significantly and that quite a few local businesspersons are afraid of the central government's anti-corruption campaign.

3 This section refers to 37 biographical interviews with workers from Shunde (21) and Dongguan (16) from our sample. In these interviews, we focused on the workers’ experiences with precariousness.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stefan Schmalz

Stefan Schmalz is a senior lecturer in sociology at Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena. His research centres on labour relations in Europe and China and global political economy. His most recent book is on strikes and changing labour relations in Germany (co-authored with Klaus Dörre, Thomas Goes, and Marcel Thiel).

Brandon Sommer

Brandon Sommer is a Ph.D. candidate at the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. His research interests lie in the areas of industrial and labour transformation in newly industrialized zones as well as precarious work especially in China.

Hui Xu

Hui Xu is a Ph.D. candidate at Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena. His research interests focuses on industrial upgrading and labour relations in China.