Chinese state-enterprise reform: Economic transition, labour unrest and worker representation

Abstract

This paper explains rising labour unrest among China's state-owned enterprise employees through an examination of the tensions between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and urban industrial workers. In so doing, it assesses the way the CCP has responded to labour pressure for better industrial and political representation since the late-1980s, and how it has shown concern over workers' attempts to form independent labour organisations, seeking instead to contain an increasingly restive working class within the framework of state-controlled unionism. We argue that the CCP's relaxation of centralised control over a more open, ‘mixed’ economy has not been matched in the area of labour representation by a greater tolerance of autonomous organisation, leading to intensifying conflict with labour.