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Insurgency and institutionalization: the Polanyian countermovement and Chinese labor politics

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Abstract

Why is it that in the nearly 10 years since the Chinese central government began making symbolic and material moves towards class compromise that labor unrest has expanded greatly? In this article I reconfigure Karl Polanyi’s theory of the coutermovement to account for recent developments in Chinese labor politics. Specifically, I argue that countermovements must be broken down into two constituent but intertwined “moments”: the insurgent moment that consists of spontaneous resistance to the market, and the institutional moment, when class compromise is established in the economic and political spheres. In China, the transition from insurgency to institutionalization has thus far been confounded by conditions of “appropriated representation,” where the only worker organizations allowed to exist are those within the state-run All China Federation of Trade Unions. However, in drawing on two case studies of strikes in capital-intensive industries in Guangdong province, I show that the relationship between insurgency and institutionalization shifted between 2007 and 2010.

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Notes

  1. Pseudonym.

  2. In fact labor conditions remain relatively good at profitable state firms (See A. Chan and Unger 2009) But conflicts still emerge, such as the violent protests that defeated plans for privatization at the Tonggang and Linzhou steel plants in 2009.

  3. The volume of unrest can only be approximated through anecdotal evidence. To grasp one small slice of the volume of resistance, see the 88 recorded incidents from the first half of 2011 on China Labour Bulletin’s map of worker unrest, available in Chinese at: http://www.clb.org.hk/schi/

  4. As Burstein and Linton argue, social movement organizations, “define public problems, propose solutions, aggregate citizens’ policy preferences, mobilize voters, make demands of elected officials, communicate information about government action to their supporters and the larger public, and make relatively coherent legislative action possible” (2002, pp. 381–382) This suggests that “relatively coherent legislative action” is more difficult in situations in which these organizations do not exist, such as contemporary China.

  5. I have written about this in “Getting through the Hard Times Together?” [unpublished at time of this writing].

  6. Some readers may notice that I have not engaged the concept of “embeddedness,” often thought to be central in Polanyi’s thought. I support Block’s argument that Polanyi discovered the always-embedded economy (2003); if, however, markets are always embedded, asking questions about dis-embedding does not make sense. Studying the specific ways in which a market (the labor market, in this case) is embedded then becomes the focus of the inquiry. In this sense, “incorporation” stands in for the concept of embeddedness because it allows us to analyze the extent to which workers have institutionalized channels to act collectively and consciously in shaping the contours of the labor market.

  7. I.e., increased rhetorical support from the state for worker grievances.

  8. I do not mean to suggest that migrant workers have become constituted as a class in the fullest sense of the term. If class formation is a multi-layered process, migrant workers certainly do not engage in collective action as a class (Katznelson 1986), and thus cannot be considered a “class in reality” (Bourdieu 1985, p. 725).

  9. December 21, 2007. “Ascendant guangzhou company plans to take away 60 % of workers salary; those who refuse to sign will be fired.” Xin kuai bao.

  10. December 22, 2007 “GZFTU to investigate Ascendant’s contract to protect the rights and interests of workers.” Guangzhou ribao.

  11. Interview, May 2009.

  12. January 1, 2008. “Some union chairs are taking the wrong position.” Guangzhou ribao.

  13. Ibid.

  14. Zhang, Lu. 2008. “Lean Production and Labor Controls in the Chinese Automobile Industry in An Age of Globalization.” International Labor and Working-Class History 73, pp. 1–21.

  15. Interview, May 2009.

  16. Interview, May 2009.

  17. Interview, May 2009.

  18. June 11, 2010. “dongfeng bentian: wufa duoshan de hudie xiaoying” [Dongfeng Honda: No way to hide from the butterfly effect] E’shang zazhi.

  19. March 8, 2007. “Honda Auto Parts Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Begins Operations in China” http://world.honda.com/news/2007/c070308AutoPartsManufacturing/ [accessed July 3, 2010].

  20. Ibid.

  21. This is a pseudonym. The same person also appeared as “Tan Zhiqing” in other reports.

  22. Interview July, 2010.

  23. May 27, 2010. “bentian duzi lingbujian chang bagong zhi guangben tinggong” [strike in Honda-owned factory results in stoppage for Guangzhou Honda]. Caixin.

  24. Interview, July 18, 2010.

  25. Interview, July 2010.

  26. May 31, 2010. “bentian jiaxin shi bagong chongji di chengben zhizaoye moshi” [Honda wage strikes are a shock to the low-cost manufacturing model]. Caixin.

  27. Interview, September 29, 2010.

  28. “Open Letter from the Nanhai District Trade Union and Shishan Town General Trade Union to the Workers of Honda Motors Nanhai Component and Parts Factory.” http://chinastudygroup.net/2010/6/translation-of-an-open-letter-from-the-nanhai-district-general-trade-union-and-shishan-town-general-trade-union-to-the-workers-of-honda-motors-nanhai-component-and-parts-factory/

  29. Ibid.

  30. Interview, July 18, 2010.

  31. The open letter from the worker representatives was posted online, available at: http://zggr.cn/?action-viewnews-itemid-9411

  32. Ibid.

  33. Thanks to Jonathan Hassid for advising on this; the leaked Department of Propaganda directive can be found here: http://zhenlibu.wordpress.com/2010/05/29/%E4%B8%89%E4%B8%AA/

  34. It is important to note that in interviews with Nanhai strikers, there was hardly any evidence of anti-Japanese or overtly nationalist sentiment. And many strikers expressed great opprobrium for their Chinese managers.

  35. June 24, 2010. “riben dianzhuang zai hua qiye bufen fugong, laozi tanpan reng zai jinxing” [Japanese Denso Company in China has Partial Resumption of Work, Negotiations Continue]. Reuters.

  36. Ibid.

  37. Ibid.

  38. September 20, 2010. “dalian tinggong chao 7 wan ren canyu boji 73 jia qiye, yi gongzi zhang 34.5 % gaozhong” [70 k participate in Dalian strike wave affecting 73 enterprises, ends with 34.5 % wage increases.” Caixin.

  39. June 12, 2010. “yi lang gao guo yi lang, bentian zhi suo gongsi ye baofa bagong” [One wave is higher than the next, strike also erupts at Honda lock factory]. Lianhe Zaobao.

  40. June 10, 2010. “Shenzhen ji tiao zuidi gongzi zhi 1100 yuan” [Shenzhen makes emergency adjustment to minimum wage, now 1100 Yuan]. Yikuo Meiri Caijing.

  41. Ibid.

  42. October 12, 2010. “guangzhou shizong: gonghui yao zuowei gongren liyi daibiao canyu xietiao laodong guanxi” [GZFTU: the union should serve as workers’ interest representative in participating in labor relations].”

  43. June 22, 2010. “kekong de bagong shi hexie de yingyou zhi yi” [Controllable strikes are a right that should be enjoyed for harmony]. Zhongguo Qiyejia.

  44. Ibid.

  45. July 3, 2010. “Guangdong sheng zong gonghui zhuxi: qiye gonghui zhuxi duo bu shi minzhu xuanju” [GDFTU chair: most enterprise union chairs are not democratically elected]. Yangcheng Wanbao.

  46. http://auto.xinmin.cn/rollnews/2011/03/07/9639022.html (accessed March 10, 2011)

  47. http://auto.xinmin.cn/rollnews/2011/03/07/9638257.html (accessed March 10, 2011)

  48. P. 91, 2010. Jiyu yu tiaozhan: gonghui gongzuo 100 li [Opportunity and Challenge: 100 cases of union work]. Guangzhou: Guangzhou shi luogang qu zong gonghui.

  49. Interview, July 4, 2010.

  50. Interview, July 18, 2010.

  51. June 14, 2010. “nanhai bentian ni minxuan gonghui zhuxi” [Plans for Nanhai Honda to hold democratic elections for union chair]. Ta Kung Pao.

  52. Interview, July 13, 2010.

  53. Interview, July, 2010.

  54. Interview, September 29, 2010.

  55. Ibid.

  56. Interview, July 18, 2010.

  57. March 3, 2011. “nanhai bentian tinggong shijian, rifang zuizhong jieshou zengjia gongzi fang’an” [Nanhai Honda work stoppage, eventually the Japanese agree to a wage increase]. Nanfang Ribao.

  58. Ibid.

  59. Without a doubt, the position of the provincial government vis-à-vis capital varies by industry. Even if the government became willing to sacrifice low value-added industries, the threat of capital flight both to other countries and other regions of China remains a concern. But given the dense cluster of auto suppliers in Guangzhou and the relatively high costs of relocating production, the government likely felt greater confidence in dealing with foreign automakers.

  60. Interview, July 25, 2010.

  61. Ibid.

  62. Ibid.

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Acknowledgments

A much earlier version of this article was presented as a paper at a panel organized by Joel Andreas at the North American Chinese Sociologists Association in August 2009. I would like to thank the following people for reading and commenting on earlier versions of this article: Fred Block, Dan Buch, Julia Chang, Peter Evans, Daniel Immerwahr, Mike Levien, Simon Morfit, Stephen Philion, Tianna Paschel, Alina Polyakova, and Aaron Shaw. The Editors of Theory and Society and two anonymous reviewers also provided helpful feedback. Funding for this research was provided by the University of California’s Pacific Rim Research Program and Labor and Employment Research Fund. I would especially like to thank the students of the Wildcat Club for their invaluable research assistance.

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Friedman, E. Insurgency and institutionalization: the Polanyian countermovement and Chinese labor politics. Theor Soc 42, 295–327 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-013-9192-1

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