Paul Garver http://talkingunion.wordpress.com/...on the Talking Union blog
Two panels at the Left Forum deal explicitly with labor issues in China: The Chinese Proletariat and the State (Sat. 10AM in W605) features Dongping Han, Li Qiang and Marc Blecher) and on Sunday at 10AM (in E325) Manfred Elfstrom (International Labor Rights Fund) and I will address the topic of Chinese Students & Workers Organize at the Grassroots on a panel sponsored by Talking Union.http://
China and the USA are two strategic poles of the emerging global social and economic order, and their futures are inextricably interlinked. China has become the "workshop of the world," exporting not only mass-produced consumer goods to North America and Europe, but also sophisticated industrial products to all markets. China’s rapid economic growth rate has barely been dented by the global financial crisis. Its 700 million-member labor force includes a vast reservoir of "floating workers" (internal migrants from rural areas to its sprawling industrial districts) as well as highly workers in urban centers. The fate of Chinese workers greatly influences the future of the global working class and of society a whole.
On March 1st, identical editorials appeared in thirteen Chinese publications calling for reform of China’s household registration system (hukou). The hukou system is a major prop of the relegation of hundreds of millions of working families to inferior status under the law. Under it, hundreds of millions of rural poor who fill the lower level industrial and service jobs in China’s urban districts are denied most aspects of social welfare (education, health care, pensions), all of which are tied to their rural villages. Lacking essential political and civil rights, these "floating workers" seldom are provided with permanent labor contracts, and consequently are not represented by enterprise trade unions. Their situation is reminiscent of undocumented immigrants in the USA. It is very difficult for such a fragmented working class to become a coherent social force in China.
Although these editorials quickly were censored from the internet, they illustrate that some educated Chinese understand the danger that China will be permanently be stuck as a "two-track" society, divided between a relatively prosperous urban elite and a large mass of rootless laborers without effective rights or socio-economic status.
Read the rest here.