Bargain without union: Paternalist labor relations in China's reform era.

摘要

This ethnographic study explores how power relations between the state, management and workers are made and remade through institutional changes under the economic reforms in today's China. The dissertation argues that despite the introduction of market competition and implementation of labor contracts and other "rational" managerial mechanisms, a predominantly paternalistic type of labor relations is prevalent in industrial organizations. To explain this phenomenon, the dissertation examines three major actors (the state, management and workers) and their interactions on three different institutional levels (state, organization and shopfloor). It maintains that it is important to understand the paternalistic labor relations in China beyond the dichotomy of "tradition" and "modernity." Paternalistic ideology is far from a relic of the past; it is being reproduced today through these three actors' interpretations of their social practices. By way of a three-case comparison of shopfloor lives in three joint ventures in Shanghai, two important types of paternalism are identified: benevolent and despotic. The identification shows how consent can be achieved alongside with coercive measures at the same time. Considerable attention is being paid to the role workers play in the reproduction of paternalistic labor relations. The dissertation aims at furthering our understanding of labor relations under social transformation by revealing not only the impact of institutional rearrangements, but also the significance of human participation in creating as well as restoring social relations.