Chinese migrant workers had not been passive in face of the desperate exploitations and the lack of rights in defense of their interests. Through studying the collective actions of a group of gemstone workers before and after they contracted silicosis, this thesis finds that workers are able to develop their collective struggles from applying a single means to multiple means, from having single-factory participation to cross-factory participation, from engaging only in individualized legal actions to launching collective class actions. Informal organizing based on localistic and dormitory networks is still the mainstream form of collective mobilization of migrant workers. It is also found that Chinese migrant workers’ class consciousness is strengthened and heightened through collective...[ Read more ]

Chinese migrant workers had not been passive in face of the desperate exploitations and the lack of rights in defense of their interests. Through studying the collective actions of a group of gemstone workers before and after they contracted silicosis, this thesis finds that workers are able to develop their collective struggles from applying a single means to multiple means, from having single-factory participation to cross-factory participation, from engaging only in individualized legal actions to launching collective class actions. Informal organizing based on localistic and dormitory networks is still the mainstream form of collective mobilization of migrant workers. It is also found that Chinese migrant workers’ class consciousness is strengthened and heightened through collective struggles.