CLASS STRUGGLE IN CHINA: CASE STUDIES OF MIGRANT WORKER STRIKES IN THE PEARL RIVER DELTA

Chris King-Chi
City University of Hong Kong kccchan(Scityu.eclu.hk

ABSTRACT
China's 'unlimited' supply of low-cost and unorganised peasant workers (Lewis 1954) has helped it to become a global manufacturing centre. The potential of Chinese workers to change their working conditions has significant meaning for global labour politics. This article draws on ethnographic case studies to examine the extent of the rise of working-class power in South China in recent years. The author contests the dominant current in labour studies, which declares the 'death of the working class' and privileges non-class identities, and argues that the expansion of global production into China has intensified the class struggle in the workplace and beyond, although the progress of workers' class formation has been hindered by the ambiguity surrounding the state's policy on class organisations. Without effective class organisations the emergence of a labour movement remains unlikely, but the unstable workplace relations and labour market also present a challenge to both state and management, and should lead to steady improvements in general working conditions. Keywords: China, class, identity, strikes, workers' protest

INTRODUCTION
The general defeat ofthe labour movement in the West and the rise of'sweatshops' in the newly industrial countries (NICs) prompted labour studies to take a theoretical turn in the 1980s. Since then, a large body of intellectual work has implied that workers and their organisations have lost the historical role in social change promised them by Marx, with this role instead taken up by non-class-based identity movements (e.g. Aronowitz & Culter 1998; Aronowitz & DiFazio 1994; Bauman 1998; Beck 2000; Casey 1995; Castells 1997; Gorz 1980; Riflcin 1996). The subordination of class identity has been further reinforced by poststructuralism, which is rooted in the 'linguistic turn'. According to this school of thought, the dominance of class analysis in the older generation of labour studies was the product of 'modem discourse' (Cannadine 1999; Day 2001;

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Skeggs 2004). In recent years, however, a number of scholars (e.g. Hutchison & Brown 2001; Silver 2003; Waddington 1999; Wood et al. 1998) have presented evidence of labour movement revitalisation in such NICs as Brazil, South Korea, South Africa and Mexico. Silver (2003: 5) arguedfiercelythat 'while labour has been weakened in the locations from which productive capital emigrated, new working classes have been created and strengthened in the favored new sites of investment'. The aim of this study is to strengthen this position by providing evidence of an emerging labour protest movement in South China, today's 'global factory'. It is argued that the expansion of global production into China has intensified the class struggle in the workplace and beyond, although the progress of workers' class formation has been slowed down by the paradox of the state's policy on class organisations. Without effective class organisations, the emergence of a fully fledged labour movement remains unlikely, but the current unstable workplace relations and labour market also present a challenge to both state and management, and should lead to steady improvements in general working conditions. Data for this research were collected in the city of Shenzhen during fieldwork the author carried out from September 2005 to August 2006, under the auspices of an NGO-run labour service centre in an industrial zone of the city. In December 2006, August 2007 and January 2008, the author returned to the field sites to observe new developments. During these trips, he interviewed a large number of workers with strike experience. NGO documents and publications were also consulted to trace the historical development of labour conflict in the region before 2004.^

CHINESE LABOUR RELATIONS IN TRANSITION

Since 1978, China's opening-up and reform policy have dramatically restructured the country's labour force and labour relations. The reform began in rural areas and was extended to cities in the 1980s. Before the reform was instituted, the state guaranteed permanent job security for urban workers, and their wages were centrally fixed (Leung 1988; Meng 2000). In rural areas, a household-based production contract system (Jiating lianchan chengbao zerenzhi) was introduced in 1978 to release peasant workers from collective labour in communes, thus allowing them to move to the cities. According to the 2000 national census, there were as many as 120 million rural-urban migrant workers in China. This 'unlimited' supply of surplus labour from rural villages (Lewis 1954) has facilitated and fostered the commodification of the labour force in urban China. In 1982, workers' right to strike was removed from the constitution (Taylor et al. 2003). Its removal was followed by three major industry reforms: the deregulation and marketisation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), the encouragement of township or village enterprises (TVEs) to compete with SOEs and, in coastal regions, the introduction of foreign investment enterprises (FIEs) (Lau et al. 2000). A flexible wage system for SOEs was introduced in 1984, followed by a labour contract system two years later 62

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(Cooke 2005). The TVEs were deregulated and encouraged to grow and compete with SOEs, and they absorbed a huge number of surplus labourers liberated by the earlier rural reform. The first Export Processing Zone (EPZ) in China, the Shekou Industrial Zone (SIZ), was set up as early as 1979. The following year, four Special Economic Zones (SEZs) were established and opened up to foreign investment. In 1984, the open-door policy was expanded from the SEZs to 14 coastal cities (ibid.). The outcome of these restructuring programmes was essentially the formation of a market-labour market and market-labour relations by the mid-1990s (Chang 2004; Leung 1998; Taylor et al. 2003). Studies on workplace relations in the SIZ found that the mediation role of socialistera trade unionism' still prevailed in the 1980s (Leung 1988; Tam 1992; Wong 1989). An early labour dispute in the SIZ occurred in a Hong Kong-invested toy factory called Kadar," which employed 1 600 workers in 1983. Workers were discontented with the long working hours and, accordingly, lodged a complaint with the Shekou Industrial Zone Federation of Trade Unions (SIZFTU) which, with the support of the local government, advised the factory to restrict overtime work. Twenty workers supported the union's stance by refusing to work overtime on the first evening after it began negotiations with management, and management responded by sacking one of the leaders. SIZFTU demanded that the company re-employ the dismissed worker, and Kadar responded by threatening to withdraw investment. With the support of the SIZ government, the union represented the workers in a lawsuit against Kadar and finally forced management to accede to their demand. In this case, the trade union and the local government took a proactive role in protecting the workers, who were relatively passive in defending themselves. Leung ( 1988) discussed another strike, which at the time was described as the city's worst case to date. In this case, 21 migrant workers employed in a Japanese factory in Shenzhen stopped work for ten hours, during which union and Party officials followed them all day and night, trying to persuade them to return to work. Compared with what the author found in later cases, the one described by Leung (1988) also highlights the rather muted worker activism in terms of strikes in the 1980s, as well as the active workplace role played by the official trade union and the Party. However, following the huge inflows of both foreign capital and inland migrant workers to the region after 1992, the official trade union was unable to maintain its position as mediator in the workplace, and very few of the FlEs established trade unions. After the crackdown on the Tiananmen democratic movement in 1989, some activists tried to organise and establish independent trade unions, but they were mercilessly suppressed (Lee 2007; Leung 1995). Responding to the new challenges, the government announced a new version of the Trade Union Law in 1992, to consolidate trade union collective consultation rights while simultaneously heightening higher-level trade unions' control over their affiliates. In 1994 alone, 17 293 trade unions were set up in FIEs - nearly double the figure for the previous ten years. However, most of these unions were controlled by management and unable even to perform their socialist 'transmission-belt' role (Chan 2001 ; Cooke 2005; Jiang 1996). As a result, most ordinary 63

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migrant workers were unaware of the existence of a trade union in their factory, and few knew whether they were union members.' Without effective trade unions, wildcat strikes became a common form of labour protest. Leung (1995: 38) reported 'a momentous rise in the number of labour protests ... during the years 1992-1994'. In the words of Jiang (1996: 139), this constituted an 'unprecedented strike wave in FIE[s] concentrated in south China', whereas Taylor et al. (2003: 175) described it as 'the third wave of strikes' in the history of the People's Republic' During this period, the local Shenzhen government's attitude to independent trade unions was very strict. In 1994, workers in a Taiwanese shoe factory in the city formed a 'temporary trade union' during a strike, but it was declared 'illegal' after the strike ended. (This case was documented in AMRC (1995), and the author interviewed the main researcher before writing this article.) The central government responded to this wave of strikes by implementing labour rights legislation. Li Boyong, the then head of the Ministry of Labour, said the following:
This year's labour and employment condition is very bad, and the labour conflict cases have a trend of rapid increase; last year the number of strikes, work stoppages, collective administrative complaints (Shang Fan), petitions, marches and demonstrations was not lower than 10 thousand, among them the FIEs were most evident. ... The Ministry of Labour is actively preparing for legislation and setting up related policies... It is hopeful that the above problems can be controlled or regulated to a large extent. {Kuai Pao, 14 March 1994)

The legal and regulatory framework established in the mid-1990s basically replaced the prior 'socialist' administrative regulation (Clarke et al. 2004; Ng & Warner 1998; Taylor et al. 2003). In 1993, the Ministry of Labour issued the 'Enterprise Minimum Wage Regulation'. More significantly, a Labour Law was legislated in 1994 - this law laid down a foundation for workers' legal and contractual rights, and a system for solving labour disputes, as well as for collective contract and consultation between trade unions and management. With no effective trade unions to represent workers' interests, however (especially in FIEs), the implementation of tripartism and a system for collective contract and consultation remained elusive (Clarke et al. 2004; Ng & Warner 1998). Local authorities were also reluctant to enforce the labour laws, and workers were often paid below the legal minimum due to patron-client relations between local government officials and business owners (Chan 2001; Cooke 2005). The arbitration procedure thus became the final legal channel for solving individual and collective disputes between migrant workers and their employers. The total number of registered labour dispute cases increased from 19 098 in 1994 to 226 391 in 2003 (State Statistics Bureau, various years), but the arbitration procedure remains very time consuming and complicated for workers.' The failure of the industrial relations framework to handle workers' grievances effectively gave rise to an emerging pattern of work stoppages, strikes and protests that bypassed trade unions and the law. According to the studies reviewed in the next section, 64

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strikes were 'scattered, spontaneous and unorganised' in the early 1990s (Leung 1995: 44) and described as constituting 'decentralization, cellular activism, and legalism' until the early 2000s (Lee 2007a: 236). This study sets out to investigate the development of strike patterns after the emergence of a labour shortage in 2004.

IDENTITY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS AMONGST MIGRANT WORKERS IN CHINA

In studies of rural-urban workers, significant scholarly attention has been paid to the 'working daughters' in foreign-invested electronics factories (see Lee 1998; Pun 2005), inspired by the feminist and cultural studies orientation of labour research in the West (Lee 2007b). These studies informed us about the integration of young women from rural areas into the modern labour regime. Such integration involved coercion, but also encountered resistance. The conditions of migrant workers in FIEs have been shown to be appalling, characterised by low pay, long working hours, despotic management and an unsafe working environment (Chan 2001). Constrained by the Household Certificate System {Hukou), which was established in the 1950s as a mechanism to stop peasants from moving to the city, these workers are denied urban citizenship, and their stay in the cities - usually in factory-provided dormitories (Pun & Smith 2007) - is supposed to be temporary (Alexander & Chan 2004; Solinger 1991), although a rural Hukou does guarantee its holder a tract of farmland in his or her home village. Lee (1998: 135) found that both control and resistance are organised along the lines of locality and gender, with young women embracing the identity of 'maiden workers' to resist the 'class domination' of management. Pun (2005: 24-25) argued that 'a new generation of migrant workers has rapidly developed a range of examples of class awareness and understanding in the workplace'.' These studies provide fruitful insights into working lives and power relations in the global workplace, and in recent years have begun to document a rising form of labour protest amongst migrant workers. Lee noted that in the late 1990s migrant workers were more politically active than their counterparts at the beginning ofthe decade - 'an emerging element in Chinese labor politics which is likely to play a larger role in the coming years but which was totally absent during the early 1990s' (2002: 63); 'by the late 1990s, incidents of worker unrest had become so routine that government and party leaders identified labor problems as the "biggest threat to social stability" ... accelerated reforms have triggered both a proliferation and a deepening of labor activism' (Lee 2000: 41). Sargeson (2001) and Smith and Pun (2006) documented stories of women migrant workers developing protests in their dormitories. Sargeson (2001) presented a story of women migrant workers who campaigned to have the same wages and promotion opportunities as their local counterparts. She (ibid.: 51 ) emphasised the transitory nature of migrants' place-loyalty: 'Yet my observations suggest that even organizing that appears to centre on place-of-origin might actually aim to educate workers politically and pave the way for more inclusive arrangements.' Smith and Pun's (2006) dormitory 65

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Study also found that kinship, place of origin and the peer networks that prevail in factory-provided dormitories provide a base for workers' protests. In Lee's (2007a: 165) comparative account of collective protests amongst SOE workers made redundant in the North and migrant workers in South China, she observed of the former that 'three major types of workplace grievances ... often lead to labor arbitration, litigation, and protests': '(1) unpaid wages, illegal wage deductions, or substandard wage rates; (2) disciplinary violence and dignity [violence]; and (3) industrial injuries and lack of injury compensation.' Lee states that it was only after the rationalisation of administration and arbitration procedures had failed to protect workers' legal rights that they were forced into 'radicalisation' by walking out onto the streets. 'Worker solidarity peaks at the point of collective exit from the factory, occasioned by plant closure or relocation,' she observed (ibid.: 175). Despite the high level of solidarity that workers exhibit in such cases, migrants often disperse to different places after a protest action has been taken and fail to maintain contact. Lee (ibid.: 24) argues that 'Chinese workers can hardly be described as having much marketplace, workplace, or associational bargaining power', noting that 'class identity is more muted and ambivalent among migrant workers than among rustbelt [northern state] workers' Lee's arguments are part of an intellectual undercurrent that downplays class analysis - a common practice in the West since the late 1970s (Pun & Chan 2008). Lee (2007a: 195, 204) points out that the migrant workers she surveyed rarely used the term gong renjieji (working class) or gong ren (workers) to describe themselves, as SOE workers did. Instead, they identified themselves as min gonglnong min gong (peasant workers), wai lai gong (outside workers) or da gong (sellers of labour to the bosses). The SOE workers in her comparative study also had better organisational resources, such as a trade union, workers' congress or stable urban community, thus allowing them to stage a joint factory campaign - a significantly more difficult undertaking for migrant workers. However, Thompson ( 1980:10-11) sees class formation as a 'historical phenomenon ' that is influenced by 'traditions, value-systems, ideas, and institutional forms' and embodied in the real context of numerous struggles in the workplace, community and society. As Edwards (2000: 142) notes, Thompson's notion was of a 'class struggle without classes', which continues to inspire contemporary workplace studies:
[PJeople find themselves in a society structured in determined ways (crucially but not exclusively in productive relations), they experience exploitation (or the need to maintain power over whom they exploit), they identify points of antagonistic interests, they commence to struggle around these issues and in the process of struggling discover themselves as classes. (Thompson 1978: 49)

Thompson's ideas provide intellectual insights for studies of migrant workers' politics in two major ways: first, workers' self-identification should be interpreted within their political and cultural context. Politically, min gong, nong min gong and wai lai gong were 66

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social stigmas attached to the new workers that arose after China's reform. Culturally, da gong is a term more familiar in the Cantonese context and has a meaning very similar to gong ren. Second, class formation can only be understood from a historical perspective. Instead of comparing migrant workers with their state-employed counterparts, whose historical and material foundations are very different, the possibilities and limitations of a more inclusive class consciousness should be explored through historical comparisons amongst migrant workers in their struggles in the workplace and community. Drawing on this approach, the author elaborates on two case studies of workers' strikes in the next section. The two cases are compared, with the discussion situating them in the historical context of labour conflicts and the legal regulatory framework in South China since 1978, reviewed in the previous section.

CHANGING CHARACTERISTICS OF STRIKES

In this section, I consider two strikes that occurred in 2004 and 2007.' Both took place in the Baoan district of Shenzhen and fall within the broader phenomenon of the aforementioned 'wave of strikes'. As will be seen, the two strikes exhibited a similar pattem of protest, although significant progress can be seen in the 2007 case, which took place in a Germanowned factory. The two strikes were organised by different groups of workers in different factories, but they leamed from each other and accumulated experience as a collective. In fact, these workers had a well-developed informal cross-factory network - especially those from the same province and in the skilled and supervisory range. The German factory was one in which workers staged a short work stoppage to demand the implementation of the minimum wage, following the Taiwanese factory strike in 2004. The many strikes that occurred in 2007 forced the city govemment to raise the minimum wage.

The 2004 strike in a Taiwanese factory

Between 2004 and 2005, a wave of strikes broke out amongst factory workers in Shenzhen. Their main demand was the full enforcement of the law - especially that concerning wage and social insurance regulations. One of these strikes took place in a Taiwanese household appliance factory that employed 9 000 workers. This factory was established in 1992, with only 20 to 30 workers. In 2004, workers were required to work 12 hours per day, seven days a week. The legal minimum wage in that year was 480 yuan' per month for a 40-hour work week. The legal weekday overtime pay was 1.5 times the usual hourly rate, and weekend overtime pay was twice that rate. However, the workers in this factory were paid below this standard, with an average basic salary of 450 yuan for eight hours a day, from Monday to Saturday. Overtime work for more than eight hours or on Sunday was compensated at an hourly rate of 2.4 yuan. Walmart was the Taiwanese factory's main customer, and since the late 1990s the factory had expanded into a giant producer with three plants - two in Shenzhen and 67

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one in the nearby city of Huizhou. Sixty per cent of the workers in the Shenzhen plants were men, and physical conflicts amongst experienced and skilled male workers from different places of origin were very common. Guizhou and Sichuan provincials were the most notorious for violence. In April 2004, the factory implemented a new policy that required workers to punch attendance cards before and after their half-hour lunch break. The aim of the policy was to prevent technicians and auxiliary workers who did not work on the production line from remaining outside the factory beyond their allotted lunch break, but it created difficulties for some workers. Those who worked on the upper floors often had to queue for ten minutes or longer to punch in and out. The strike began in the lacquering department, which was situated on the fifth floor, and then spread to the entire factory the next day. Workers requested that their basic salary and overtime pay rise in line with the legal minimum rate. In the morning, a notice calling for a strike was posted in every department, but the call for a factory-wide strike was unsuccessful. More than 100 workers from the lacquering department then walked out of the factory and blockaded a nearby highway. However, they were either persuaded back in by their managers or driven off by the police. A group of young men from the department then turned off the electricity in different departments, with the result that most workers left the factory and stood outside. Town officials and the police soon showed up, and the factory requested that the workers elect representatives. There was no formal election, but ten workers volunteered themselves. Negotiations were held in the afternoon, but after the meeting concluded, the ten disappeared. A reliable rumour was that they had been threatened and then dismissed with a huge amount in compensation. In the evening, some of the workers became annoyed enough to rush into the administrative office. They drove the Taiwanese general manager and local factory director to the entrance of the factory, where thousands of workers had gathered. A witness described the scene:
There were 2 000 to 3 000 workers on the scene at the factory entrance, and also a certain numher within the factory complex, who requested the Taiwanese Lao (Taiwanese guy) [the general manager] to come out and explain. The Taiwanese Lao finally came out at 9:00 pm. As soon as he appeared, those standing at the entrance pushed inwards, while those inside crowded out; all were screaming with a 'wow, wow' sound. Someone shouted, 'Kill him! Kill him!' ... The Taiwanese Lao was then beaten by somebody. Four or five security guards promptly dragged the Taiwanese Lao and the director into the factory, and closed the gate of the factory.... Some angry workers managed to climb over the iron gate. Others flung out cigarette butts, water bottles, and rubbish onto the body of the Taiwanese Lao. Haifa bottle of water was just thrown down on the head of the Taiwanese Lao. The Taiwanese did not lose his temper; by contrast, he said, 'don't throw this stuff, don't throw stuff. Wages can be raised'. One of the workers cursed, 'you Taiwanese guys do not treat us as humans'. ... Around 100 workers stayed on overnight to block the factory and stop it sending goods out.

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On the third day, 2 000 to 3 000 workers walked from the factoiy to the highway. They were stopped after about ten minutes by hundreds of police, military police and security guards. Labour Bureau officials persuaded them to return to their factory by telling them: 'As long as you go back, we can talk about any conditions on the table.' When the workers got back to the factory, they found that the Taiwanese managers had all escaped to a neighbouring Taiwanese factory. The factory gate was locked after workers walked into the factory. Some of the more militant workers forced the security guards to let them out by threatening violence. Discontent was widespread amongst workers, and more of them mobilised in the evening. On the morning of the fourth day of unrest, a message was spread amongst workers. 'In dormitories, private buildings and even [on] street corners, there were people asking others [to] "go to the city government'", one worker recalled. Two large banners with the slogans 'Return our ten workers' representatives' and 'Factory XX violates the labour law, doesn't raise wages!' were posted. At 8:00 am, 4 000 to 5 000 workers departed from the factory and walked to the highway. Workers also brought megaphones and cameras, and carried fund-raising boxes on which they had written 'For our common interests, please put in your money!' These boxes were soon filled. Younger ordinary workers held the megaphones and shouted slogans, and a number of middle-aged skilled and supervisory employees walked alongside them, making 'wow wow' sounds to boost morale. The cameras were used only to take pictures of workers being beaten by policemen, but not vice versa. Increasing numbers of workers from other factories joined in. At 1:00 pm, the protestors, whose numbers had reached as many as 7 000 to 8 000, arrived at the immigration control station," where upwards often fire engines and 30 water cannons stood. Water cannons were used to drive away the workers, who lobbed stones and bricks at the police. Later on, the police sent out plainclothes officers to mingle with the protestors, before suddenly attacking the workers with great force. As those in the front fell, those standing behind began to scream, and others retreated. A number of workers were arrested, but soon released. Thirty workers were sent to hospital and treated well, with their medical expenses being paid by the police. The head of the district police bureau came to visit them and gave every patient - workers and policemen alike - 100 yuan. On the fifth afternoon, a general meeting was held during which the general manager assured workers that both their lunch and dinner times would be extended to one hour, and he promised that the factory would comply fully with the law. These reassurances brought the strike to a close. Although their wage concerns had been settled, workers' discontent over the punishment system and intensive work pace continued. For example, the factory set a daily output target for workers. If an employee was unable to meet that quota, deductions were made from his/her wages. This daily target was actually increased after the strike. Some inexperienced workers saw as much as 200 yuan or more deducted from their monthly income. To avoid such deductions, workers were forced to work even harder. Some went to the Labour Bureau to file a complaint, but their complaint was not

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accepted. At the end ofthe year, around 3 000 workers resigned from the factory and collected the two years' social insurance they had successfully demanded in a collective complaint to the district Labour Bureau after the strike. A trade union was established after the strike, but it remained a typical management-orientated union, without any democratic committee elections or union activities. Following this strike at the Taiwanese factory, all eight of the large factories in the same industrial village (each employing more than 1 000 workers) experienced struggles and demands for the full implementation ofthe legal wage. At the first sign of a strike, these factories' managers informed the government, the main factory gate was locked and the factory estate was surrounded by police. In each case, however, even without negotiation, the factory owners responded positively to demands to increase wages in line with the law. In late 2004, the aforementioned Taiwanese firm opened a giant factory in Huizhou. Hundreds of supervisors and skilled workers from the factory where workers had gone on strike were dispatched to help set up the new factory, and were thus able to transfer their strike experience to the new setting. The first factory-wide strike in Huizhou took place in December 2004. The author visited the Huizhou factory in March 2006 and found that the workers there were quite familiar with stories ofthe strike in Shenzhen. Department-based work stoppages had by then become endemic in both factories, and employee turnover rates were very high (Chan 2009).

The 2007 strike in two German factories

Shenzhen has two legal minimum wages - one for workers inside the SEZ and one for those outside it. The latter, which was 419 yuan per month in 2000, was increased slightly every year, but still only amounted to 480 yuan in 2004. However, in July 2005 it was boosted to 580 yuan, and in July 2006 to 710 yuan. As a result, for two consecutive years most workers in large factories enjoyed large pay rises and, accordingly, expected a similar increase in July 2007. This increase never came, nor did the city government increase the minimum wage in August 2007, thus providing the basis for another wave of strikes in August and September ofthat year. One ofthe cases in August 2007 involved a joint factory strike at two electronics plants owned by the same German company. These plants employed about 8 000 workers each and had very similar working conditions and management strategies. In general, the company complied with the law by providing the legal minimum wage and social insurance - two ofthe key concerns for workers after 2004. This German-owned business produced mobile phone chargers for the global market. After its establishment in 1993, it expanded to two large plants in Shenzhen and another in Beijing. Similar to the case ofthe Taiwanese factory, the wage level at these factories was comparatively higher than that at some ofthe smaller factories in the area. What was different from the Taiwanese factory, however, is that 90 per cent ofthe ordinary workers were women between the ages of 18 and 30. Most ofthe production 70

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workers were from the provinces of Henan and Guangxi, while most of the skilled workers came from Guangdong. Ordinary manual workers were called yuan gong (employees), while others, including managers, supervisors, engineers, technicians and office clerks, were called zhi yuan (staff). After two consecutive years of pay rises, the company reduced its costs by increasing the work intensity of yuan gong and curtailing the overtime pay of zhi yuan from late 2006. The work quotas assigned to each production line were first increased steadily. If workers could not complete their quota, their lunch time the following day was shortened to allow them to complete the unfinished tasks. Many workers complained that the work was exhausting. To tackle the ensuing high turnover rate, the factory restricted workers' right to resign. Those leaving without proper 'permission' saw the company keep their last month's salary. The factory then restricted the amount of overtime that the zhi yuan could work to 72 hours per month, from July 2007. In addition, as in the Taiwanese factory, from August 2007 the zhi yuan were ordered to punch a time clock. When the workers received their payslips in August and realised that there had been no salary increase, and technicians and supervisors found their income reduced due to the overtime restriction, they decided to organise a strike, which quickly spread from one plant to the other. The strike began on a Thursday. On Friday evening, a letter making the following demands, was posted in all workshops in the first plant: 1. To adjust our current wage standard yuan gong: 1 500 yuan or more; second level zhi yuan: 2 000 yuan or more; third level zhi yuan: 2 500 yuan or more; fourth level zhi yuan: 3 000 yuan or more; the above figure[s] should exclude any subsidy.'^ To raise the accommodation and food subsidy for those living outside. To improve the welfare conditions, provide reasonable allowances for high temperature, toxic, outdoor and occupational disease-prone posts as well as regular occupational disease and body checks. To provide a night-shift subsidy and snack allowance for those working the night shift. [To provide] unemployment, maternity, hospital and all ofthe other insurance requested by the labour law. To solve the problem of hygienic drinking water. To improve the [fairness of] overtime work. The trade union should function appropriately, and its core members should include ... grass roots employees and staff.

2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

On Monday morning, some ofthe skilled workers switched off the electricity. Thousands of workers then walked out to the highway and occupied half of the main road. The town's Party head. Labour Bureau officials and top managers tried to persuade the 71

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strikers to elect representatives for the purposes of negotiation. The workers responded that they were all representatives, or they had no representatives, after which the police drove them off by force. A number of young workers at the front of the crowd resisted, and several were arrested. In the aftemoon, management announced their decision to increase the basic salary for staff by 300 to 500 yuan, depending on their position, and by only 30 yuan for employees. Most of the supervisory staff were satisfied with this offer, and went back to work on Monday night. On Tuesday, the production workers decided to continue the strike. The factory posted a notice announcing the aforementioned salary increase, as well as a 50 yuan subsidy for those living outside the company dormitories and a 1 yuan per day allowance for night-shift workers. The managers and supervisors tried their best to persuade the workers to go back to work, but the latter began to feel that the staff had 'betrayed' them. In the evening, pamphlets were thrown down from the dormitory buildings denouncing the zhi yuan (staff) and calling for the yuan gong (employees) to remain unified. The pamphlets also outlined the following demands: 1. Basic salary: 810 yuan'' [for employees]. 2. No deduction of fees for living in the dormitory; [those] living outside should receive [an] appropriate subsidy. 3. Night shift should have a night snack allowance of 150 yuan [per month]. 4. Give those workers in toxic and detrimental conditions an appropriate subsidy and subsidise the outdoor-working staff according to the Labour Law (150 yuan). 5. The drinking water of yuan gong should reach the hygiene standard. This list of demands was more concrete and specific to the interests of ordinary workers than the previous letter posted in the workshops. It demonstrated that instead of being passively mobilised by supervisory and skilled staff, ordinary workers were able to act in their own interests, although their resources were relatively limited. Encouraged by the pamphlets, the workers continued their strike for a third day. On the fourth day, the company announced that those who wished to resign in three days' time would receive all compensation and wages due them immediately, and those who returned to work in three days' time would receive an extra allowance. All other workers would be considered 'absent' and as having quit. Three thousand workers resigned. Management agreed to provide distilled water in both the dormitories and workshops, and promised to install air conditioning in the workshops and a rest area with a TV set on each floor of the dormitories. The demand for rank-and-file members to be able to join the trade union committee did not meet with a positive response. However, as an alternative, factory management did promise a regular meeting with supervisors and said it would encourage suggestions from ordinary workers. The course of events was similar in the company's second factory. Workers in both plants returned to work on the fourth day, and the factory recruited new workers
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by extending the age restriction. During the strike, a rumour that the city government would soon increase the minimum wage spread amongst the workers and proved to be true. From 1 October, the minimum wage in Shenzhen was increased to 850 yuan for workers inside the SEZ and to 750 yuan for those outside. It was also announced that the new wage would be effective until 30 June 2008. As with the 2004 strike, the knock-on effect of this strike was obvious. Workers in many of the large factories nearby staged short strikes to issue wage demands, or made preparations to do so, and management generally responded rapidly to satisfy their demands. Both cases fell within a wave of strikes that took place around the same time, in the same location and followed a similar pattern (C. Chan 2010). My selection of these two cases for detailed discussion was based on the higher level of militancy and coordination demonstrated by these workers. As the two factories involved were both located in Shenzhen, and the experiences there were widely spread through the workers' information network (Chan 2009), these cases provide us with an understanding of how workers learn from one another and can advance their collective experience.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

Although strikes were reported in the Pearl Delta Region as early as the 1980s (Leung 1988; Tam 1992; Wong 1989), their impact and scale were small relative to the waves of strikes after 1993. A series of commonalities can be seen in the pattern of strikes from 1993 to 2007, although detailed analysis provides evidence of significant development (Chan & Pun 2009), as summarised in the following: 1. Workers' demands became increasingly radical, moving from within the limits of the law to beyond it.'" In 1993 and 1994, when management responded to workers' wage rise demands by charging them for food or accommodation or increasing the fees for these, workers failed to resist, as these acts were legal (AMRC 1995). In 2004 and 2005, however, workers demanded the real implementation of the minimum wage without any deductions. In 2007, the strikers asked for a decent wage in addition to a proper working and living environment. Workers learned from past experience and from one another, and thus their struggles became strategically more sophisticated over time. From 1993 to 1994, strikers confined themselves to the factory complex (ibid.), whereas in 2004 and 2007 they began walking out to the highway to attract public attention and state intervention. In the 2004 case, the workers transferred the struggle experience to a new factory in another city, whereas in 2007 workers in two factories owned by the same company coordinated with one another to stage a joint strike. Labour shortages increased workers' confidence. Despite the seemingly unlimited supply of migrant workers in the early 1990s (Lee 1998), the further
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expansion of global capitalism into China promptly pushed up the demand for labour, although there was no concomitant rise in wages (Lewis 1954). One of the key characteristics of the 2004 and 2007 strikes was the largescale resignations that followed. The workers knew that it would be easy to find another job quickly. Edwards and Scullion (1982) suggested that quitting one's job is itself a form of industrial conflict. In the case studies presented herein, resignations as an individual form of struggle increased in parallel with the collective form of struggle represented by the strikes. Although most workers' wages were raised after the strikes, their discontent with management remained. Skilled workers, in particular, were not in fact in 'unlimited supply' when the economy was undergoing rapid growth (Lewis 1954). 4. The high turnover rate exaggerated the shortage of labour and reduced productivity. The strikes further strengthened rank-and-file workers' confidence and increased the worker-management conflict. To 'voice' and then 'exit' or 'voice' again, to borrow Hirschman's (1970) terms, became a common way of expressing discontent. This new pattern of workplace conflict represented a huge challenge for management, whose first concern was productivity, and for the state, which was keen to maintain social order and a favourable investment environment. The emerging pattern of protests forced the latter to improve labour protection (e.g., by implementing new labour legislation and a higher minimum wage) and the former to adopt new business strategies (e.g., relocating production to other parts of China and outsourcing). At the same time, however, workers' struggle strategies also changed over time in the face of the new legal, social, economic and political environment. As noted, these protests forced the Chinese government to improve workers' legal protection mechanisms. Li Boyong's aforementioned speech provides very clear evidence of the outcome of the 1993-1994 strikes. Following those in 2004 and 2005, a Labour Contract Law was legislated in 2007 to strengthen workers' individual and collective rights, alongside a Dispute Mediation and Arbitration Law and an Employment Promotion Law. At the local level, the legal minimum wage was dramatically increased after the 2004-2005 wave of strikes. It seems that the state also recognised the deficiency of an individual rights-based framework, as well as the need for a 'collective' instrument in the workplace to solve conflicts and stabilise the labour force. Hence, the role of the trade union was strengthened in the aforementioned 2007 Labour Contract Law. With strong state support, the ACFTU in 2006 launched a historic high-profile campaign to unionise migrant workers in FIEs by targeting such transnational corporations as Walmart, McDonald's and KFC (Chan 2006b). The impetus for trade union reform came from Party and state political pressure to prevent social unrest (Clarke & Pringle 2007), as almost all of the workers' protests

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had bypassed the official trade union. These state and union initiatives can be regarded as political concessions to workers and thus as having provided a new environment for workers' activism. In fact, the real barrier to collective bargaining and democratic trade unionism remained unchanged. Workplace trade unions, especially those in FIEs, still have no active membership, and union committees are generally controlled by management rather than workers. (Clarke et al. 2004; CLB 2008) Thus, the ambiguity surrounding the state's policy on class organisations has hindered the progress of class formation. As the German factory case showed, workers' demand to reform the workplace trade union did not elicit a response from the management, local state or higher-level trade union on the eve of a national unionisation campaign from the ACFTU. Without such effective organisations, workers' struggles are confined to the workplace or community level, and the establishment of a significant labour movement remains unlikely. As long as neither the state nor the ACFTU supports 'illegal strikes', and civil society (if it exists) remains too weak to provide any help, strike leaders will remain isolated and risk managerial revenge. These factors account for the 'hidden' leadership and lack of collective bargaining in the strikes discussed herein. With no overt leadership, different sectors of workers remained vulnerable to division. Although the 'hidden' leaders, who were mainly skilled or senior workers, had greater ability to see the trade union as a class organisation, the younger manual workers had a very limited understanding ofthat role. Following these considerations, I agree with Lee (2007a) about the contradictory role ofthe state in maintaining legitimation and its capacity to serve workers' interests in 'labour regulation and [the] social reproduction of labour power'. Where I cannot agree with her is in her theorisation of class and identity. Lee tended to interpret 'class' as a discourse or language that workers use or do not use: 'the discourse of class. Maoism, citizenship, and legality as the repertoire of standards of justice and insurgent identity claims' (ibid.: 29). As this article has shown, however, the language of 'class' is not a reliable indicator by which to make a judgement about class consciousness or workers' behaviour. In the 2004 case, for example, the workers called their boss Taiwan lao (Taiwanese guy), emphasising the distinction between him and themselves as mainland Chinese. In 2007, workers called themselves tong bao (country fellows) in contrast to their German manager. In neither case were the terms gong ren (worker) or gong ren jie ji (working class) used. However, other workers - including those employed in factories owned by local mainland Chinese bosses - also went on strike and made similar demands. It is thus clear that the workers in these cases did not perceive their strikes as being against the Taiwanese or Germans, but rather against 'the bosses'. The purpose of investigating the use of discourse involving such terms as Sichuan people, mainland people, tong bao (country fellow), yuan gong (employee), zhi yuan (staff) and zhi yuan gong (staff and employees) in these protests is to explore how a basis for solidarity is constructed or deconstructed in a specific class struggle context. 75

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As Clarke (1978) noted, class relations and their political and ideological forms cannot be separated in class analysis, although the concept of class as a type of social relation precedes the latter analytically. While Lee (2007) focused on workers' discourse as evidence of the weak working-class identity amongst migrant workers, I rely on the process of action as a manifestation of class identity and solidarity to suggest that these workers' protests are part ofthe class struggle taking place within China. The articulation of Chinese workers' identity must be understood and interpreted in the cultural, political and historical context of post-socialism (Pun & Chan 2008). Lee concluded that 'decentralization, cellular activism, and legalism' are characteristics not only of labour protests, but also ofthe collective mobilisation of other social groups (2007a: 236). Lee's generalisation could not be confirmed in the present study. It reminds me of the importance of the historical dimension of class struggle (Thompson 1980). First, legalism was simply an institutional tool that the workers employed to agitate for their interests. As soon as the law was enforced, and they did not see their interests reflected therein, they increased their demands, as seen in the 2007 strike. It is clear that their struggle was interest- rather than rights-based. Second, the data I present contradict Lee's claim that workers' protests always begin with legal procedures, and that it is only when local authorities and the courts fail to satisfy them that workers take to the streets. In the cases I discuss, strikes and road blockades became a very effective form of struggle. The state authorities intervened only after huge numbers of workers appeared on the highway. Third, although these workers' protests fell within the boundary of factory, company and community, they displayed a tendency towards better planning and coordination. These stories of Chinese migrant workers' struggles contest the view that such concepts as 'work', 'factory' and 'the working class' are obsolete. Instead, they have been reconstructed in different spaces in different forms. Although the location of production and forms of employment have changed dramatically, the basic logic ofthe accumulation of global capital remains unchanged (Cohen 1991; Harvey 1990; Wood et al. 1998). The new agenda for social scientists is to come to an understanding of how the class struggle is unfolding in different contexts, and how the pattern of this struggle has changed over time"(C. Chan 2010).

NOTES
1 This is a modified version of Chan, C.K.C. 2008. 'Emerging Patterns of Workers' Protest in South China.' Peripherie, 111:301-327 [in German]. I am grateful to the editor and publishers of that article for permission to reproduce the article in its present form. The author's gratitude also goes to the editors and reviewers ofthe South African Review of Sociology for their suggestions on strengthening the article. This is part ofthe author's PhD research, which has also been published as a book (C. Chan 2010). See Chapter 1 ofthe book for a detailed description ofthe methodology employed in this research. Other published work based on this research can be found in Chan (2009), and Chan and Pun (2009).

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The All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) is the only trade union centre in China. All trade unions must affiliate to it. Prior to 1978, almost all workplaces in China had trade unions. Unlike the case in capitalist societies, however, these unions were supposed to have no conflicts of interest with management, as all enterprises were owned by the state. Instead, their interests 'were supposed to be identical and their identification was reinforced by the subordination of both to the Party-state' (Clarke et al. 2004: 241). These supposedly identical interests and goals were to boost productivity and mobilise workers to support the propaganda of the state (ibid.: 242). Both the director/general manager and trade union chair were branch committee members of the Party within the enterprise. The trade union was usually responsible for organising recreational activities, productivity competitions and overseeing workers' welfare. In case of a conflict between management and workers, the Party and trade union engaged in mediation to minimise its negative impact. This case was documented by Wong (1989), based on information provided by SKFTU during his fieldwork in Shenzhen. See Chan (2006a) for the development of trade unionism in China. The first and second waves both took place in the 1950s. See Lee (2007a) for detailed elaboration on the labour administrative complaints and arbitration procedure. At the same time, however, she also pointed out that 'the "new working class" ... is often deformed, or even killed, at the moment of its birth' by state mechanisms (Pun 2005: 20). My selection of these two cases is based on three considerations: first, workers in these strikes demonstrated a higher level of militancy, and the strikes had a larger impact on the community than others that were less organised. These two cases thus allow an exploration of the possibilities and limits of a radical workplace in China's global factories. Second, these strikes occurred in two of the largest factories in an industrial town in Shenzhen, and the workers in both were aware of each other's struggle experiences, thus facilitating a historical comparison of strike pattems. Third, I built rapport with the workers in these two factories, which allowed the collection of more reliable in-depth data. One yuan is equivalent to US$0.15. This station was built in 1979 to separate the first SEZ from the city outskirts with a spiked steel fence. The wage demanded reflected workers' expectation for their monthly income, including overtime pay, but excluding additional subsidies such as those for accommodation and night-shift work. Here, only the wage demand of ordinary manual workers is listed, and the basic salary refers to the monthly wage for an eight-hour day and five-day week, with overtime pay calculated on the basis of this rate. The basic salary of ordinary workers in most factories was no more than the legal minimum, which was 710 yuan at the time of the strike. This means that the strikers were demanding 100 yuan on top of the legal minimum. For example, at a time when the legal minimum wage was 710 yuan, the strikers in the German factory demanded a basic wage of between 1 500 and 3 000 yuan, as well as an accommodation and food subsidy. This article reviews the development of migrant workers' strikes until 2007, but 2008 was another landmark year for labour conditions in China, due to the global economic crisis and the implementation of a new Labour Contract Law (Chan, Pun & Chan 2010). Soon after the Chinese

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economy started to recover in late 2009, a nation-wide wave of strikes began, with many staged in May and June 2010 (A. Chan 2010; Yazhou Zhoukan, 13 June 2010). I see the 2010 wave of strikes as the further advance of migrant workers' consciousness, as this article argues.

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BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Chris Chan is assistant professor at the Department of Applied Social Studies, City University of Hong Kong. He works closely with trade unions and labour NGOs. He is the author of The Challenge of Labour in China: Strikes and the Changing Labour Regime in Global Factories (Routledge, 2010). His research focus includes workplace conflict and labour organisation in China. The author can be contacted at the Department of Applied Social Studies, City University of Hong Kong, Tat Chee Avenue, Kowloon, Hong Kong, China.

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