the something that has to be done

Han Dongfang has an interesting piece up at Jamestown about China’s new labour contract law. His basic position is that it’s no substitute for collective bargaining rights and grassroots organizing. But there’s an interesting subtext:

In terms of developing a collective bargaining system, the new Labor Contract Law comes at a good time and occupies a favorable position in China’s legislative landscape. It is a propitious time because both those in the central government in Beijing and ordinary workers across China now agree that—after three decades of accumulated tension between labor and management—something has to be done. If the situation continues in which management routinely exploits labor and violates workers’ rights with impunity, workers, as in the past, will increasingly resort to protest and even violence in order to seek redress, and this will benefit no one. The law occupies a good position because it effectively builds on China’s existing foundation of labor legislation and regulation. In particular, the Labor Contract Law stipulates that it is the employer’s responsibility to sign a collective labor contract with the employees’ representative. If the ACFTU and its branch unions can grasp the opportunity presented by the law, it is probable that after a couple of years of finding their way and gaining experience in negotiations with management, the creation of a genuine and effective collective bargaining system in China will no longer be a problem for the unions.

A basic assumption when Beijing makes any kind of law favouring one group or other in society is that it is doing so in order to encourage that group to exert its new powers at the expense of the power of others. As such, the labour law can be seen as a kind of complimentary opposite to Jiang Zemin welcoming Chinese entrepreneurs into the Communist Party. Having given Chinese business access to political power, it moves to prevent capture by that interest by granting power to that group’s natural antagonists. This is the “something” that has to be done.

Naturally, the aim as well is to prevent the kind of exploitation that can result in labour disturbances and increase discontent with the government; also, perhaps, to increase incomes and make the Chinese economy a little less dependent on exporting. It also reflects the generally populist approach of the Hu/Wen government.

The job now is to entrench the law beyond the period where it might be considered by the government to outlive its usefulness, establish that it doesn’t meet the wider social objectives desired in its current form, and hint that the establishment of the right to organize and bargain collectively might be a suitable long term legacy for the current tenants of Zhongnanhai.

And if you end up with the conditions which might support the establishment of a labour party – or at least a labour lobby – then that would be no fault of Han's.

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[poetryman69]

I dream of a Green China. Perhaps the only chance for the whole planet?