At the Roots of Labour Activism: Chinese and Cambodian Garment Workers in Comparative Perspective

ABSTRACT

In China extensive, co-ordinated strikes such as those that have taken place in Cambodia in recent years remain rare, with most protests initiated by Chinese workers contained inside single factories or industrial zones. Also, while Cambodian workers often mobilise for their interests and broader policy issues, such as the determination of the minimum wage, Chinese workers largely limit themselves to protests against violations of their legal rights. How can these different patterns of labour activism be explained? Through factory gate surveys and interviews conducted during the summer of 2016 in a sample of Hong Kong-owned garment factories in Dongguan and Phnom Penh, this study provides a comparative analysis of the root causes of labour activism in China and Cambodia. In particular, the article focuses on three elements that play an important role in determining labour activism: the expectations of the workers regarding wages; the workers’ perception of the labour law and the legal system; and trade union pluralism.

KEYWORDS:

• China
• Cambodia
• labour protest
• trade unions
• labour law
• wages

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Professor Anita Chan, Dr Nicholas Loubere, and Dr Christian Sorace for their valuable comments on earlier versions of this article; Ratana Heng, Lucy Wang, and William Conklin for their help in arranging fieldwork; and Nan Liu for her assistance with the analysis of data. He also wishes to acknowledge the participants to the 2017 Made in China Summer School for their feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The exchange rate was set at around 4,000 riel per dollar. In this article, all costs in Cambodia are in US$, which is the currency to which workers and people generally referred to in their daily life and in interviews and discussions.

2. There have been some notable exceptions. See Chan (2010), Chan and Hui (2012), Chan and Pun (2009), Friedman (2014) and Yang (2015).

3. Only in June 2018, the Cambodian authorities passed a Minimum Wage Law to lay the foundations for a “universal minimum wage” to be determined every year through “tripartite consultation” (Khmer Time, June 8, 2018).

4. Although some scholars have pointed out that the official union is far from a uniform entity (Liu, Li, and Kim 2011) and there is a growing body of literature that studies Chinese experiments with union democracy at the company level (Chan 2015), the ACFTU is generally looked upon as an inefficient body, especially when it comes to representing the rights and interests of its supposed constituency. In light of this, some scholars have even raised doubts about whether the ACFTU should be considered a union at all (Taylor and Li 2007).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under the Marie Skłodowska–Curie grant agreement No. 654852.