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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 May 2008
This article examines shop-floor bargaining in China in both the socialist and reform eras. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in three manufacturing factories, document analysis, and secondary sources, the author discusses how government policies and organizational structure shape the interaction between workshop managers and workers and how the practice on the shop floor alters managerial attempts in return. The author argues that, despite different economic structures in the two historical periods, Chinese workers are not the docile labor force often portrayed in literature and media. Instead, they utilize any leverage given within organizational structures and bargain for not only economic gains, but also for respect and autonomy. Their bargaining, though different from institutionalized union bargaining, influences managerial decisionmaking in a subtle way with ideological implications.
1. Despite the fact that a few recent studies of Chinese workers draw our attention to several workers' protests in the first thirty years of communist rule and dismiss the perception of a docile work force under the socialist authoritarian regime, their voice is relatively weak, and they insert less impact than the ones who argue otherwise. See Anita Chan, “Revolution or Corporation? Workers and Trade Unions in Post-Mao China,” The Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 29 (1996), 31–61; Jackie Sheehan, Chinese Workers: A New History (London, 1998); Elizabeth Perry, Shanghai on Strike: The Politics of Shanghai Labor (Stanford, CA, 1993) and Challenging the Mandate of Heaven: Social Protest and State Power in China, (Armonk, NY, 2002).
2. Ted C. Fishman, “The Chinese Century,” The New York Times Magazine, July 4, 2004.
3. I can say that ninety-nine percent of workers were willing to talk to me openly about a wide range of topics including some international affairs, such as Taiwan's problem with possible American involvement. We, of course, talked more about their own lives. After a certain amount of socializing with managers and workers on the shop floor, I was able to overcome their suspicions and gain their trust. I believe that interviewees' trust is one of the key factors in conducting ethnographic studies. For example, I was visiting a foreman in his late fifties at his home. He openly condemned his company's management for its harsh treatment toward workers and wondered where all the profits truly went. His wife, whom I had just met, tried to stop him several times by saying that he should avoid causing himself troubles. He told his wife not to worry because he trusted me.
4. On the danwei system as a unique type of organizational form, please see Andrew Walder, Communist Neo-Traditionalism: Work and Authority in Chinese Industry (Berkeley, 1986); Oded Shenkar, “The Firm as a Total Institution: Reflections on the Chinese State Enterprises,” Organization Studies 17 (1996), 885–907, and Xiaobo Lu and Elizabeth Perry, Danwei: The Changing Chinese Workplace in Historical and Comparative Perspective (Armonk, 1997).
5. Walder, Communist Neo-Traditionalism.
6. Feng Lu, “State, Market, and Enterprise: The Transformation of Chinese State Industry,” PhD. diss., Columbia University, 1999. This argument is often supported by quite a few studies on management in socialist factories: Because of the centralized state power, management did not have any say over production and labor allocations.
7. Interview at the worker's home, November 1999.
8. Interview at the worker's home, May 2000.
9. Interview at the worker's home, November 1999.
10. For example, one interviewee told me how excited she and her coworkers were when the workday was reduced from twelve to eight hours. She said, “Before the liberation, we worked twelve hours a day, called ‘six in and six out.’ We went to work at 6 a.m. and left work at 6 p.m., or the other way around when it was a night shift. When it changed to eight hours a day, all of us were happy. We said we now could see daylight.”
11. Interview at the worker's home, May 2000.
12. For details, see Walder's discussion in Communist Neo-Traditionalism, 147–8.
13. During the Cultural Revolution, the Party-State halted the college entrance exam, and universities selected their students from workers, peasants, and soldiers. One former worker told me that all he wanted at that time was to be selected as “worker college student.” Because he did not have a family background “red” enough, he had to work extremely hard and be politically active in order to give his leaders a good impression, even though he never really believed in communism.
14. For the wage system before the reforms, see Christopher Howe, Wage Patterns and Wage Policy in Modern China, 1919–1972 (Cambridge, 1973), and Mark Frazier, The Making of the Chinese Industrial Workplace: State, Revolution, and Labor Management (Cambridge, 2002).
15. Interview in a restaurant in New York, April 2001.
16. Walder, Communist Neo-Traditionalism.
17. Sheehan, Chinese Workers: A New History. Sheehan thinks that workers, having undergone education as their leading role in the state as well as in factory, were prepared to defend their rights and protest against managerial authoritarianism and privilege. Different from Sheehan, however, I believe workers used the discourse as a weapon only against managerial mistreatment rather than for overturning or changing the system, which they knew was practically impossible.
18. Interview at a former worker's home, May 2000.
19. Anita Chan, “Chinese Trade Unions and Workplace Relations in State-owned and Joint-venture Enterprises,” in Changing Workplace Relations in the Chinese Economy, ed. M. Warner (New York, 2002).
20. Doug Guthrie, Dragon in a Three-Piece Suit (Princeton, 1999); Feng Lu, State, Market, and Enterprise: The Transformation of Chinese State Industry.
21. For example, in one of the factories I visited, being late to work was attached with more than one monetary punishment. One was supposed to arrive at the factory before 7:20 and start working at 7:30. Thus there were different punishments for an arrival after 7:20 and after 7:30, respectively, in addition to the other rules for arrivals one hour late or more.
22. Ching Kwan Lee, “From Organized Dependence to Disorganized Despotism: Changing Labor Regimes in Chinese Factories,” China Quarterly 157 (1999), 44–71, 1999; Greg O'Leary, ed., Adjusting to Capitalism: Chinese Workers and the State (Armonk, 1997).
23. Interview at Mr. Xia's home, May 2000.
24. I heard the conversation on the shop floor at Stone.
25. According to Chinese custom, especially in Shanghai, first names are only used by people with close relationships. For work relationships, people usually precede family names with the word “old” or “little” based on ages to avoid calling each other the full names, which is considered too formal.
26. Interview in the manager's office, January 2000.
27. Interview on the shop floor, January 2000.
28. Interview in the manager's office, May 2000.
29. Michael Burawoy, Manufacturing Consent: Changes in the Labor Process under Monopoly Capitalism (Chicago, 1979).
30. For example, Ching Kwan Lee, “From Organized Dependence to Disorganized Despotism.”
