Neue Muster von ArbeiterInnenprotest in Südchina

Abstract

Abstract

Emerging Patterns of Workers‘ Protest in South China.

With its ‚unlimited‘ supply of low cost and unorganized peasant workers, China has become a global manufacturing centre. The potential ability of Chinese workers to change this situation has significant meaning for global labour politics. Through ethnographic case studies, this paper examines the extent to which working class power in Southern China has managed to raise 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 instead argues that the expansion of global production into China has intensifi ed class struggles in the workplace and beyond -even though workers‘ class formation has been dislocated by the state‘s labour regulation strategy. It is argued that without class-based organisations the emergence of a labour movement is unlikely; nonetheless, the unstable workplace relations and labour market present a challenge to both state and management and are leading to the steady improvement of general working conditions.