In May of this year, 50,000 workers went on strike in the Taiwanese-owned Yue Yen shoe
factory in Dongguan. Dongguan is part of the Pearl River Delta (PRD), a major industrial
centre for export factories near Hong Kong. This may be one of the biggest strikes in the
PRD so far - but it is only the tip of the iceberg. ---- Over the past 20 years there have
been thousands of actions taken by the migrant workers, who make up the main body of the
workforce in the PRD. Women make up the majority of this workforce and, though reports of
the strikes are gender-neutral and talk only about ?workers?, will certainly make up the
majority of strikers. It's impossible to discuss the new Chinese working class without
considering the different situations in which men and women find themselves, and the
affect this has on their role in strikes and other acts of resistance.
Migrant workers have been coming to the PRD since the early 1990s, when the Chinese
government opened China up to market forces and encouraged foreign investment. For a
variety of reasons, most of these migrants are women, especially on the assembly lines.
Bosses think that young women are more ?docile? and able to put up with the tedium of the
work and the patriarchal family system means that girls have no future in rural areas, as
the son generally inherits the family farm. As a result many young women are eager to
leave the countryside for a new life in the city. As one young woman said: ?There is
nothing to do at home, so I went out?.
Horrendous
The wages and conditions for many young women are horrendous. One woman?s story (Chang:
2010) gives an idea of what it was like. Min arrived in Dongguan in the mid-1990s. Like
many others, she had a relative already living there who helped her begin the job hunt. It
wasn't difficult to find a job. She started work for an electronics firm, living in a
dirty, smelly dormitory with 12 other girls she didn't know. Shifts lasted 13 hours with a
couple of breaks, though she often worked weeks without a single break. Min earned about
50 dollars a month. She had thought it would be fun working on an assembly line, chatting
and laughing with the other women. But she soon learned this was not the case: talking on
the job was forbidden.
What happened next in Min?s story gives some indication of the acts of resistance that may
have led to the big strikes we are seeing in China today. Min had difficulty coping with
the tedium of the assembly line and would often talk and take toilet breaks. One day, when
she was told off, she walked off the line in protest. Completely unexpectedly, the boss
started being nice to her and promised that if she stayed she would get her back wages and
hinted at a promotion. However Min replied: ?Your factory is not worth wasting my youth
on? and said she would stay only 6 more months and expected all the pay she was owed. She
left 6 months later, straight into another job as a low level clerk.
These acts of resistance have been noted by a number of writers who have spent time with
the ?dagonmei?, or ?women working for the boss?. Despite the factory system of control and
domination, they have managed to find ways to resist and as in Min?s case, many are
willing to speak out and leave. Clearly, the women have not turned out to be as ?docile?
and easily controlled as the bosses had hoped! There is a high staff turnover, with many
women going back to their villages to get married. This labour shortage has helped the
workers to gain some bargaining power. Once workers win one small victory, it will
hopefully build their confidence, leading to bigger and bigger actions.
It is hard to gain a complete picture of the role of women in the strikes. Women will
certainly constitute a major part of the strikers as they are the assembly line workers. A
strike at a Honda factory in Zhongshan in 2010 where women made up the majority of the
workforce won a significant victory with pay concessions as well as winning the right to
choose their own representatives for collective bargaining rather than having to rely on
the official trade union. According to the China Labour Bulletin, the strikes in 2013
occurred in factories with a largely female workforce. Women were particularly active in
communicating information about the strikes and spreading the word by internet and mobile
phone. However, their actual role during the strikes remains unclear.
The recent strike at the Yue Yen factory indicates that whilst women may make up the
majority of strikers, the leaders are still men. In fact, according to one report on
Reuters (Ruwitch 2014) it was the managers who started the strike. They were mainly
concerned that the company had not been keeping up on its social insurance contributions.
It was more senior workers, most likely to be all men, who were in a position to be
concerned about this issue.
Women, therefore, have two struggles on their hands. Not only are they experiencing the
worst of the conditions and wages, they also may be sidelined by male workers (who are
often more senior, skilled and better paid) in the struggles themselves. It is difficult
to become a leader in these strikes in a patriarchal society.
The women often do not remain in urban areas long enough to become more embedded in a
social movement because they are pressurized by their parents and by society as a whole to
return to the village and marry. Increasingly, however, once women have been to the urban
areas and experienced the relative freedom that exists there, they are resisting the
pressure to return. Instead, they find ways to escape the assembly line, taking courses
and involving themselves in other projects. Despite this they may not have the options
available to men, and one of their escape options may be into prostitution.
It is important that as anarcha-feminists, we seek to understand the complexity of what is
going on. We cannot simply see everyone as ?workers? but need to actively consider the
role gender plays. It is clear that all workers of all sexes are determined to fight their
exploitation but women have their own battles to fight ? to ensure they play an equal role
in all struggles.
References: Ruwitch (2014) In China, managers are the new labour activists, Link:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/06/01/uk-china-labor-strikes-idUKKBN0EC10720140601
Chang (2010) Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China, Spiegel & Grau
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