Synopses & Reviews
Labor Activists and the New Working Class in China is an ethnographic work examining an export jewelry industrial district in Pearl River Delta of China. While well known that China is undergoing an unprecedented capitalist transformation, few have noted the new working class of China are also actively striving to alter their fate through labor struggles. Parry Leung lived for twelve months in the migrant worker dwelling sites, and kept close contact with the strike activists. Leung illuminates how strikes emerge and transform in an authoritarian state, by enhancing our understanding on the informal agency power of strike organizers in labor activism.
Synopsis
This project provides an in-depth study of the role of worker-activist leaders in industrial strikes in China, a country where labor rights face significant challenges from state and industry suppression and by current lack of formal organization.
About the Author
Parry P. Leung is Associate Professor in the School of Sociology at the China University of Political Science and Law, China. He was the founder and chair of Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) during 2006 to 2013. SACOM is a Hong Kong-based anti-sweatshop organization which has been active in uncovering labor abuses in China.
Table of Contents
1.Understanding Labor Activism in China
2.The Macro-Setting: The New Working Class Under the Chinese State Capitalism
3.The Micro-Setting: Strikes of Jewelry Workers in PRD
4.Organizing Mechanism of the Strikes
5.Leading Strikes in China: The Critical Role of the Labor Activists
6.The 'Citizen Strike': Sustaining the Organizing Core
7.Conclusion: The Way Towards An Organized Labor Movement