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Abstract
This article explores the emergence of transnational regimes of regulation governing labour standards and how these impact and articulate in China. Specifically, the article addresses how domestic non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in China communicate emergent regulatory norms and extend these into domestic domains, redefining how labour codes are developed and instantiated in local policy contexts and throughout the globalized value chains. It does so by adopting a qualitative case study approach to analyse how engagement with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) norms transforms labour-support organizations and their roles in labour negotiations, regulation and oversight. Using a case study approached focused in the Guangdong Province of China, the findings suggest that a transnational private regulation supports the development of local NGO activity and in turn transmits norms, modes of conduct and regulation that has a fundamental impact on how labour NGOs ensconce themselves and help transmit and construct regulatory practices that govern labour practices.
Notes
1. 1. The interpretation of their work is strictly my own and those I interviewed might not necessarily agree. I do not reveal the identities of my interviewees. The case studies I choose stand for a broader category of organizations and reflect viewpoints of a range of interviewees – not only the organization’s point of view. A list of the persons directly quoted in this paper is in the appendix.
2. 2. There is no single concept of civil society and definitions also very between scientific disciplines and countries (Kocka 2000, Gosewinkel et al. 2004).
3. 3. Both SOs and PNEUs are non-profit, while social organizations are membership based and PNEUs are not (Lu Citation2007). All registered organizations have to follow the regulatory requirements laid out in the ‘Registration and Management of Social Organizations’, which introduced a dual management system requiring an organization to first seek a government sponsor (a Supervisory Agency) and then to register with the Ministry of Civil Affairs (MCA) or a local counterpart. Therewith, registered organizations are always somehow semi-official (Ashley and He Citation2008).
4. 4. There have been cases where factory owners used violence and force staff of labour-support organizations (for one example see China Labor News Translations (2009)).
5. 5. Given that there is always the possibility that the workers are too afraid (e.g. about potentially loosing the job) to tell the truth, no valid numbers of successful outcomes are available.
