THESIS
2009
vii, 66 p. : ill. ; 30 cm
Abstract
For weak people, resistance is formulated when an opening political opportunity exists. However, an opportunity affords a chance for potential challenging movements, but does not automatically guarantee organized collective action and promise a positive outcome. By presenting the case of migrant workers’ resistance, given the latest labor laws in China, this research proposes to reveal how an opening political opportunity contributes to the emergence and outcome of social protests. The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Employment Contracts (LEC), which came into force in 2008, creates a chance for migrant workers’ resistance by imposing a severe penalty clause on the one hand, and contributes to workers’ subjective perception of opportunity, as a result of mass media propaganda a...[
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For weak people, resistance is formulated when an opening political opportunity exists. However, an opportunity affords a chance for potential challenging movements, but does not automatically guarantee organized collective action and promise a positive outcome. By presenting the case of migrant workers’ resistance, given the latest labor laws in China, this research proposes to reveal how an opening political opportunity contributes to the emergence and outcome of social protests. The Law of the People’s Republic of China on Employment Contracts (LEC), which came into force in 2008, creates a chance for migrant workers’ resistance by imposing a severe penalty clause on the one hand, and contributes to workers’ subjective perception of opportunity, as a result of mass media propaganda and factory employers’ tactics in labor law enforcement, on the other hand. After recognizing the protection given to them by law, workers blame their poor situation and measly income on factory employers’ misconduct in employment. The compensation for employer misconduct that workers deserve serves as an inducement for worker mobilization. This study finds that the managerial hierarchy in factories and workers’ employment status contribute a lot to the emergence of resistance, because the managerial workers have higher rights consciousness on one hand, and act as activists in protests, since they benefit much from the actions and have the power to mobilize others, on the other hand. Legitimated by law, migrant workers claim higher-level demands, such as requiring unpaid overtime working payment, severance payment and favorable items in employment contracts. Workers achieve some success in these demands although the concession is limited, since the mediators, local governments, prefer to bring the bargaining to an end as soon as possible. The moderate grievances of migrant workers in labor disputes and time-consuming arbitrary channels also lead to measly concessions as the common resolution. This study traces some cases to reveal how opportunity channels protests, and compares the patterns of migrant workers’ protests before and after the enforcement of LEC, to examine the role of a concrete opportunity in the outcome of a protest.
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