Class Struggles in China: Strikes, Protest, and Workers' Resistance

Socialism 2017

August 15, 2017

China has been the fastest growing major economy in the world for three decades. It is also home to some of the largest, most incendiary, and most underreported labor struggles of our time. In spite of legal restrictions against non-state workers’ striking, workers engage in thousands of job actions every year—the China Labour Bulletin recorded 2,663 strikes in 2016, a figure significantly below the likely total number. This talk, by the author of China on Strike, will provide an intimate and revealing window into the lives of workers organizing in some of China’s most profitable factories, which supply Apple, Nike, Hewlett Packard, and other multinational companies. Drawing on dozens of interviews with Chinese workers, this talk will document the processes of migration, changing employment relations, worker culture, and other issues related to China’s explosive economic growth as well as its growing class conflict.

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