Abstract
This chapter compares labour conflicts in China and Vietnam, especially in the export-manufacturing centres located in the south of the two countries. Both countries have had strong growth in export manufacturing with a significant share of foreign direct investment. In both countries the workforce in these industries is dominated by unskilled, rural migrant workers. The official trade unions of China and Vietnam are controlled by the party states and fail to represent the interests of workers in labour conflicts, while independent labour unions are effectively banned. In result, labour conflicts typically take the form of “wildcat strikes”. Despite these similarities, available quantitative data and more anecdotical evidence show that the frequency of strikes in Vietnam is significantly higher than in China. The chapter suggests four explanations of this difference. First, Vietnam’s work organization is more facilitating to collective labour leadership than that of China. Second, the predominant “worker village” housing in Vietnam is more conducive to collective labour organisation than the typical dormitory housing in China. Third, compared with Vietnam, China’s labour legislation individualises and diverts collective conflicts. Finally, the Vietnamese government is more accommodating to collective labour demands than the Chinese. These different government policies are influenced by revenue conditions of local governments in the two countries.
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Notes
- 1.
Relocation to Vietnam might have been influenced by the planned Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP), which included Vietnam and excluded China. In 2017 the Trump administration scrapped the TPP. The trade war between the United States and China since Fall 2018 also promotes relocation from China to Vietnam.
- 2.
Chen discusses the ACFTU in China. In my view his analysis also applies to the VGCL in Vietnam.
- 3.
The 2002–2005 figures referred to the Pearl River Delta, while the 2011–2015 figures referred to all of Guangdong Province. However, the brief descriptions published by the CLB show that 83 of the 91 listed strikes in Guangdong during 2011–2015 took place in the Delta, four took place elsewhere in Guangdong and four had unknown locations.
- 4.
Large rice export by the Vietnamese government, which monopolises the marketing of rice, contributed strongly to the high prices. See Siu and Chan (2015: 85–86).
- 5.
Tabulated from figures obtained from Vice Director Vu Minh Tien, VGCL, Hanoi, 23 August 2016.
- 6.
Hong Kong and Macao are Chinese territories since 1997 and 1999, respectively. They are designated “special-administrative regions” with home rule. Taiwan is claimed by China, but it is a de facto independent state.
- 7.
“Unknown enterprise ownership” in the CLB database were left out from my tabulations, while “joint ventures” of national and foreign enterprises were categorised as “domestic”.
- 8.
Tabulated from ILOStat Country Profiles and dataworldbank.org (industrial workforce ratio) and China Statistical Yearbook (2015: table 2.5) (population ratio).
- 9.
Figures obtained from Vu Minh Tien, VGCL, Hanoi, 23 August 2016.
- 10.
Tabulated from ILOStat Country Profiles and dataworldbank.org (industrial workforce ratio) and Statistical Handbook of Vietnam (2015: table 7) (population ratios).
- 11.
Tabulated from China Statistical Yearbook (2015: table 2.5). Strikes as proportions of the industrial workforce would have been a better measure, but reliable assessments are complicated by large-scale labour migration.
- 12.
Tabulated from Statistical Handbook of Vietnam (2015: table 6).
- 13.
Personal information Quynh Chi Do, Hanoi, February 16, 2017.
- 14.
Some companies tried to address the problem. Cannon recruited team leaders from the outside. They became a new management stratum. Still, this did not change the situation. A new generation of sub leaders took on the role that the team leaders had performed before. Personal information Quynh Chi Do, Hanoi, 16 February 2017.
- 15.
Personal information Quynh Chi Do, Hanoi, 16 February 2017.
- 16.
Personal information, Vu Minh Tien, VGCL, Hanoi, 1 October 2019.
- 17.
Personal information Quynh Chi Do, Hanoi, 16 February 2017.
- 18.
Tabulated from China Labour Bulletin (2019). Unlike my previous tabulations, the service sector is included in these figures.
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Nordhaug, K. (2020). Labour Conflicts in the Socialist Market Economy: China and Vietnam. In: Hansen, A., Bekkevold, J.I., Nordhaug, K. (eds) The Socialist Market Economy in Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6248-8_9
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