Factory Politics in the People's Republic of China

Joel Andreas, Ph.D. (2003), University of California, Los Angeles, teaches sociology at Johns Hopkins University. His first book, Rise of the Red Engineers: The Cultural Revolution and the Origins of China’s New Class (Stanford University Press, 2009), analyzes the contentious merger of old and new elites after 1949. His second book, Disenfranchised: The Rise and Fall of Industrial Citizenship in China (Oxford University Press, 2019), traces radical changes in industrial relations over the past seven decades.

• List of ContributorsIntroduction1 From Passion to Deception – Daily Life at the Grassroots under State Control of Production before and after the Great Leap Forward: an Investigation of TY Factory in Guangzhou (1956–1965)Jia Wenjuan (贾文娟)Translated by Shayan Momin2 Research into the Implementation of the Staff and Workers Congress System in State-Owned Enterprises: a 60-Year Case Study of One FactoryCai He (蔡禾) and Li Wanlian (李晚莲)Translated by Roderick Graham Flagg3 A Simple Control Model Analysis of Labor Relations in Industrial SOEsTong Xin (佟新)Translated by Roderick Graham Flagg4 Changes in Production Models within State-Owned Enterprises under the “Double Transformations:” the Rise of Internal Labor Subcontracting in City A’s Nanchang Factory (2001–2013)Jia Wenjuan (贾文娟)Translated by Shayan Momin5 Sustaining Production: Spatial Interactions between Han and Uyghur Workers at the Kashgar Cotton MillLiu Ming (刘明)Translated by Heather Mowbray6 Corporate Social Responsibility in the Global Toy Industry’s Supply Chain: an Empirical Study of Walmart Supplier Factories in ChinaYu Xiaomin (余晓敏)Translated by Shayan Momin7 Direct Labor Union Elections: Lessons from GuangdongWen Xiaoyi (闻效仪)Translated by Matthew A. Hale8 Patterns of Collective Resistance among the New Generation of Chinese Migrant Workers: from the Politics of Production to the Politics of LifeWang Jianhua (汪建华) and Meng Quan (孟泉)Translated by Matthew A. Hale

"[Factory Politics in China] is fluidly translated and it fills important gaps in existing research. It applies concepts developed by theorists in China and abroad to developments in the “workshop of the world”—and then quietly tweaks those same theories. It alters our understanding of the country’s labour history in significant ways, e.g., by raising the status of the Great Leap Forward and its immediate aftermath and lowering that of the Cultural Revolution and early Reform Era. But most importantly, it introduces a thoughtful, creative, and committed group of scholars who should be followed closely by anyone concerned with social justice and worker power in China or elsewhere." -Manfred Elfstrom, University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna in Pacific Affairs: Vol. 94, No. 3 (Sept. 2021)