JennyChan.PhDThesis.2014.FINAL

markets on the part of local governments has led to an overwhelming emphasis on
firm autonomy and flexibility at the expense of workers’ safety, health and rights.” 138
To ensure a good investment climate, local labor officials do not stringently enforce
labor laws and regulations. They are far more interested in creating a
business-friendly environment for building their political career. Based on his survey,
Barry Naughton found that “cadres are subject to annual evaluations, in which they
can score up to 100 points, of which more than 70 are awarded for outcomes that are
directly linked to economic growth.” 139 Not surprisingly, labor inspection by the
local bureaucracy is to a large extent a systemic failure.
The fundamental right to strike was included in China’s 1975 and 1978 Constitutions,
but was eventually removed in 1982, reflecting the government leaders’ concerns
over political stability and their fear of the possible influence of Polish Solidarity on
Chinese activists. 140 Strikers are thus not protected by Chinese law. But the absence
of legislative protection has failed to curtail workers from going on strike. 141
Whereas strikes tend to have a more “immediate political effect than do such
‘nibbling’ actions as absenteeism, pilfering, slowdowns, or sabotage,” 142 scholars
have also paid attention to labor court challenges 143 and collective worker
petitions, 144 which likewise have drawn great attention from state officials at various
138 Mary Elizabeth Gallagher, 2004, “Time is Money, Efficiency is Life: The Transformation of Labor
Relations in China,” Studies in Comparative International Development 39(2), p. 20.
139 Barry Naughton, 2010, “China’s Distinctive System: Can It Be a Model for Others?”, Journal of
Contemporary China 19(65), p. 455.
140 Jeanne L. Wilson, 1990, “‘The Polish Lesson:’ China and Poland 1980-1990,” Studies in
Comparative Communism XXIII (3/4), p. 267.
141 Chris King-Chi Chan, 2010, The Challenge of Labour in China: Strikes and the Changing Labour
Regime in Global Factories, London: Routledge; Ching Kwan Lee, 2010, “Pathways of Labor
Activism,” Chinese Society: Change, Conflict and Resistance, edited by Elizabeth J. Perry and Mark
Selden, London: Routledge, pp. 57-79; Ching Kwan Lee, 2007, Against the Law: Labor Protests in
China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt, Berkeley: University of California Press; Anita Chan, 2011, “Strikes in
China’s Export Industries in Comparative Perspective,” The China Journal 65 (January), pp. 27-51;
Feng Chen, 2007, “Individual Rights and Collective Rights: Labor’s Predicament in China,”
Communist and Post-Communist Studies 40, pp. 59-79.
142 Elizabeth J. Perry, 1993, Shanghai on Strike: The Politics of Chinese Labor, Stanford, California:
Stanford University Press, p. 7.
143 Isabelle Thireau and Hua Linshan, 2003, “The Moral Universe of Aggrieved Chinese Workers:
Workers’ Appeals to Arbitration Committees and Letters and Visits Offices,” The China Journal 50
(July), pp. 83-103; Mary E. Gallagher, 2006, “Mobilizing the Law in China: ‘Informed
Disenchantment’ and the Development of Legal Consciousness,” Law and Society Review 49(4), pp.
783-816; Mary E. Gallagher and Baohua Dong, 2011, “Legislating Harmony: Labor Law Reform in
Contemporary China,” From Iron Rice Bowl to Informalization: Markets, Workers, and the State in a
Changing China, edited by Sarosh Kuruvilla, Ching Kwan Lee and Mary E. Gallagher, Ithaca, NY:
Cornell University Press, pp. 36-60; Feng Chen and Xin Xu, 2012, “‘Active Judiciary’: Judicial
Dismantling of Workers’ Collective Action in China,” The China Journal 67 (January), pp. 87-107.
144 On a vivid study of migrant worker petitions to local and Beijing governments, see, Globalization
Monitor, 2009, o Choice but to Fight: A Documentation of Chinese Battery Women Workers’
Struggle for Health and Dignity, Hong Kong: Globalization Monitor, ch. 5.
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