Taming Labor: Workers’ Struggles, Workplace Unionism, and Collective Bargaining on a Chinese Waterfront

Tim Pringle and Quan Meng

ILR Review, 2018, vol. 71, issue 5, 1053-1077

Abstract: This article examines the case of the Yantian International Container Terminal (YICT) to consider under what conditions unions can provide effective workplace representation in China. The authors draw on semi-structured interviews to analyze how and why the union was effective, despite rigid prohibitions against organizing outside of the Party-led All-China Federation of Trade Unions. The authors argue that the YICT union developed a system of annual collective bargaining that tamed the power of militant dockworkers and helped prevent strikes. This outcome required an effective enterprise-level trade union that was nevertheless able to influence and manage members’ somewhat ambiguous acceptance of its role. Ultimately, workers’ interests were partially represented and their acquisition of associational power—in the form of trade unions—increased.

Keywords: structural power; associational power; deflected associational power; strikes; trade unions; collective bargaining; All-China Federation of Trade Unions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://ilr.sagepub.com/content/71/5/1053.abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:ilrrev:v:71:y:2018:i:5:p:1053-1077

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in ILR Review from Cornell University, ILR School
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().