Chinese Workers in Comparative Perspective, edited by Anita Chan. ILR Press, Ithaca, NY, 2015, 296 pp., ISBN: 978 0 8014 5349 6, $79.95, hardback.

Date01 December 2016
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12190
Published date01 December 2016
British Journal of Industrial Relations doi: 10.1111/bjir.12190
54:4 December 2016 0007–1080 pp. 870–886
BOOK REVIEWS
Chinese Workers in Comparative Perspective, edited by Anita Chan. ILR Press, Ithaca,
NY, 2015, 296 pp., ISBN: 978 0 8014 5349 6, $79.95, hardback.
The industrial relations system of China has alwaysbeen something of a mystery to me.
It is not quite a fully developed IR system with traditional union organizing, legally
prescribed collective bargaining, a well-defined right to strike and voluntary political
alliances. The Chinese labour relations system is a work in progress, something that is
neither here nor there. So, exactly how much can an edited volume,the product of an
academic conference, go towardexplaining Chinese labour relations?
First a few words aboutpublished collections of conference papers. Collections can
be informative butthey must be carefully designed and balanced. Readers will ask: are
the papers even in length and breadth and rigor of analysis? Are some papers truly
comparative analysis,while others are little more than superficial descriptions of what
happened in one or two countries? Aresome papers far ranging conceptual discussions
while others are case studies of an industry or two, or legal treatises? Are the papers
up-to-date,or was the conference held a few years ago and much has changed since? In
essence, Anita Chan’sbook––Chinese Workers in Comparative Perspective—must pass
a double test; first, is it a good collection in general, and, second, does it contribute
to our understanding of labour relations in China? On both accounts, Chan succeeds.
Her edited volume may not be perfect but it is very good.
It should be understood, first, that the chapters in this book are papers from
a November 2011 conference of the China Research Centre at the University of
Technology in Sydney, Australia. The book was published four years after the
conference (and probably five years after the papers were written), and this may
raise concerns about whether the contributors have, through updates, addendums,
and some nimble rewriting, covered the recent economic downturn in China and
worker disappointment because of dashed expectations about income For example,
the introduction (by Chan) refers to a 48,000 worker strike in 2014 to suggest the huge
size of bargaining units in China; the chapter on union reforms in Russia and China
(by Pringle) is based on references that mostly go up to 2011; and onlythe chapter on
the right to strike in China (by Nice and Cooney) has an updating postscript (but it
only refers to a 2014 regulation)
The book is organized into three parts; historical and structural developments
(2 chapters and 44 pages), labour standards (4 chapters with 112 pages) and trade
unions, collective bargaining and the right to strike (4 chapter with 87 pages). The
authors are from China and Taiwan, Europe (mostly from Germany and England)
and the United States.
The introduction to the volume counters claims of Chinese exceptionalism,arguing
against the notion that China is a special case in the world of labour relations. The
C
2016 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.

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