Labour Unrest in the Global Political Economy: The Case of China's 2010 Strike Wave

Abstract

This paper argues that whilst the relationship between US consumerism and China's low-wage production has underpinned China's economic growth in recent years, policy-makers are increasingly cognisant of heightened internal and external vulnerabilities, namely increased domestic social unrest and downturns in US demand. Despite calls for increased domestic consumption, opinion remains divided as to the extent to which policy-makers will make a genuine departure with China's export-orientation. This paper argues, however, that the direction of the Chinese political economy will depend much on the transformative role of workers’ struggles. Placed in a broader north-east Asian comparative perspective, we argue that China appears to be on the verge of a transition towards a limited labour supply, as evidenced in increasing labour shortages, rising wages costs and new forms of labour unrest. An in-depth case study of the strike at Nanhai Honda in 2010 suggests that China's migrant workers are beginning to develop a class consciousness and move from reactive to proactive demands. Furthermore, the response of the Chinese state and employers has shifted from one of outright repression to one of accommodation. These trends are likely to be highly significant in terms of China's uneven integration into the global economy.

Keywords:

• China
• labour
• strikes
• Nanhai Honda
• domestic consumption

Notes on contributors

Kevin Gray is Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Sussex, UK. He is the author of Korean Workers and Neoliberal Globalization (Routledge, 2008), Labour and Development in East Asia: Social Forces and Passive Revolution (Routledge, forthcoming 2014), as well as co-editor of (with Barry Gills) People Power in an Era of Global Crisis: Rebellion, Resistance and Liberation (Routledge, 2012), and (with Craig N. Murphy) Rising Powers and the Future of Global Governance (Routledge, 2013). He is also the Assistant Editor of the journal Globalizations and co-editor of Routledge's Rethinking Globalization book series.

Youngseok Jang is Professor of Chinese Studies at Sungkonghoe University, South Korea. He is author of Chinese Labour Relations in an Age of Globalization (in Korean; Seoul: Polliteya Press, 2007) and Changes in the Contemporary Chinese Labour System and Transformations in the Functions of Trade Unions (in Chinese; Baoding: Hebei University Press, 2004). He is also co-author, with Seung-Wook Baek, of Chinese Workers and the Politics of Memory: The Memories of the Cultural Revolution (in Korean; Seoul: Proletaria Press, 2007).

Notes

1 The Lewisian Turning Point is the point whereby labour ceases to shift from the agricultural to the urban industrial sector and, as a result, labour shortages emerge and wages begin to rise.

2 ‘Tan Zhiqing' and ‘Zhou' are both pseudonyms attributed by Zhou and Liu (2010) to protect identity of the two workers.