Workers' Participation and Their Health and Safety Protection in China's Transitional Industrial Economy

Abstract

Chinese workers have inherited from the Maoist era two institutions through which they may participate in workplace management—the trade union and the Staff and Workers' Representative Congress. This paper analyzes how workers have participated in the protection of their health and safety through these institutions, describing their functions, on paper, as stipulated by laws and regulations, and in practice, in a printing machinery shareholding company, based on an indepth case study. The impacts of these two institutions have declined with industrial economic reform, and the power of the enterprise is shifting toward management. China is confronted with serious occupational health and safety problems. It is imperative to strengthen the mechanisms that engage workers in the prevention of these problems.

Keywords:

• workers' participation
• workplace management
• occupational health and safety
• China
• transitional industrial economy
• economic reform
• trade union
• workers' congress