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From ‘Labour Dividend’ to ‘Robot Dividend’: Technological Change and Workers’ Power in South China

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Labour Questions in the Global South

Abstract

China became the world’s largest market for industrial robots in 2013. The robotic revolution gained pace and occurred after the 2008 financial crisis as many export-oriented firms coped with dwindling orders, rising labour costs and growing concerns over occupational safety. Unlike workers in the Global North who experienced automation in the 1960s and 1970s against a backdrop of strong union activism, whether semi-proletarian peasant-workers in China ultimately enjoy the ‘beneficial’ effects of industrial upgrading is questionable. However, very little social science research has investigated how automation, in light of the negative consequences of unemployment and deskilling, can continue to be advanced. Drawing on Beverley Silver’s concept of workers’ power, this article explores how workers’ marketplace and workplace bargaining power interfaces with technological change. The Chinese case may offer important lessons to those in the under-technologized South seeking to conceptualize strategies for social change in the context of industrial upgrading.

Originally published in Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 6 No. 1 Copyright 2017 © Centre for Agrarian Research and Education for South (CARES), New Delhi. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holders and the publishers, SAGE Publications India Pvt. Ltd, New Delhi.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Authorities classify robots as either industrial robots used in manufacturing or service robots performing tasks other than industrial automation. In our research, we studied only industrial robots, which are defined by the International Organization for Standardization ISO 8373 as ‘automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose manipulator[s] programmable in three or more axes, which may be either fixed in place or mobile for use in industrial automation applications’ (IFR 2015). An industrial robot is a typical component of programmable automated systems. The term ‘automation’ denotes technology designed to replace human labour in the manufacturing process, combining industrial technologies for physical operations and computer technology for information management (Siciliano et al. 2009, p. 16). Here we use these terms interchangeably because in introducing robots, manufacturers are, at the same time, automating their production lines.

  2. 2.

    For a full definition of ‘intelligent manufacturing’ please refer to ‘Guidance on National Intelligent Manufacturing Standard System Construction (2015)’, jointly published by the MIIT and the Standardization Administration of China.

  3. 3.

    The literal translation of this policy should be ‘replacing humans with machines’ (jiqi huanren). However, we decided to adopt the translation ‘replacing humans with robots’ because the application of machines in itself does not make a firm eligible for the subsidy, although some degree of automation is required. The 2014 plan awarded subsidies to 438 firms, but only 5 per cent adopted industrial robots, while 95 per cent used non-robotic automated equipment.

  4. 4.

    An OEM is a company that produces parts and equipment that may be marketed by another manufacturer. For example, when Foxconn manufactures mobile phones for Apple, Foxconn is the OEM.

  5. 5.

    Translation by Yu Huang and Edwin Schmitt.

  6. 6.

    In 1982, the term of the contract was designated to be 15 years. To stabilize agriculture production and overcome the problem of further fragmentation of farmland, the principle of ‘more people but no more land, fewer people but no less land’ (zengren bu zengdi, jianren bu jiandi) was adopted. In 1997, the contract term was extended to 30 years (Wen 1999).

  7. 7.

    The average annual salary for the manufacturing sector was 48,750 yuan in 2015. See Yu (2016).

  8. 8.

    We were able to collect data on four out of the eight factories that adopted robots and automation systems. For the four factories from which we were not able to gather data, Factory M already had automation equipment (CNC) at the time of establishment. Therefore, there was no information on the labour force before automation. We obtained information on Factory D mostly from workers who had grievances with the owner and did not feel it would be appropriate to interview the owner. Factory J was still testing its automation line, which was not yet in production. The owner of Factory K did not want us to take notes of our conversion and did not want his factory to be reported on, even anonymously.

  9. 9.

    The table reflects only workforce changes in the same production line, not in the whole factory. For example, Factory L reduced labour in the production unit but increased personnel in the still labour-intense QC unit. However, it is foreseeable that with automation technology implemented in QC, the overall workforce for the whole factory will decline significantly.

  10. 10.

    All informants’ names have been anonymized.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Mathew Hale, Boy Lüthje, Vitor Schincariol, Kenneth Tsz Fung NG, the Agrarian South editorial team and participants at the Sam Moyo African Institute for Agrarian Studies Summer School 2017 for their valuable comments and suggestions. Earlier versions of this paper were also presented to ‘The 9th Asian Regional Congress of the International Labour and Employment Relations Association (ILERA)’, Beijing, 1–3 November, 2016 and the ‘Workshop on Labour Geography: From Spaces of Work to Communities of Struggle’, City University of Hong Kong, Department of Asian and International Relations, and Goettingen University, Germany, Department of Sociology, Hong Kong, 25–26 March, 2017.

Funding

The authors gratefully acknowledge the funding support from the Institute for Emerging Market Studies (IEMS) at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Ethnology and Sociology, The Minzu University of China, Beijing, China

    Yu Huang

  2. Division of Social Science and Division of Public Policy, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong SAR, China

    Naubahar Sharif

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  1. Yu Huang
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  2. Naubahar Sharif
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Economic Studies and Planning School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

    Praveen Jha

  2. Sam Moyo African Institute for Agrarian Studies (SMAIAS), Harare, Zimbabwe

    Walter Chambati

  3. Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda

    Lyn Ossome

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Huang, Y., Sharif, N. (2021). From ‘Labour Dividend’ to ‘Robot Dividend’: Technological Change and Workers’ Power in South China. In: Jha, P., Chambati, W., Ossome, L. (eds) Labour Questions in the Global South. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4635-2_8

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