Ngai, P. 2004. Women Workers and Precarious Employment

7/28/2019 Ngai, P. 2004. Women Workers and Precarious Employment

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Women workers andprecarious employment inSiienziien SpeciaiEconomic Zone, CiiinaPun NgaiIn spite of the increase in transnational codes of conduct and legal mobilisation of labour, despoticlabour regimes in China are still prevalent. Globalisation and 'race to the bottom' productionstrategies adopted by transnational corporations militate against the improvement of labourrelations in C hina. The goal of this study is toprovide a framework for understanding the workingconditions of female migrant workers. W hile the inhumane working con ditions of the womenworkers have been repeatedly observed, none of the existing studies has provided a solid analysis ofthe precarious employment system in China. This article aims to span global factors as well as localelements, demonstrating how they each contribute to precarious employment patterns. The hiddencosts of the production and reproduction cycles are still unkno wn.^

As China has become increasinglyincorporated into the global economy overthe past two decades, it has developed intoa 'world workshop', providing a huge poolof cheap labour for global production.Since the mid-1990s we have witnessed asurge in the relocation of t ransnationalcorporat ions inChina, especially fromHong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, the USA, andWestern Europe. More than 100 millionpeasant workers work in t ransnationalcorporations which are directly owned orjoint-ventured by American and Europeancompanies , or they work for Chinesecompanies which act as contractors andsubcontractors for these comparues. Thereare concerns emerging among NGOs aswel l as in academic circles aboutglobalisation and labour conditions in post-socialist China.

The 'Chinese Working Women Netw ork'(CWWN) started its project in the SpecialEconomic Zone (SEZ) in Shenzhen, justacross the border from Hon g K ong. Since1996 we have witnessed the rapid

incorporation of migrant labourers in thisSEZ, which was set up in 1980. Before this,Shenzhen was only a small city with 310,000residents and fewer than 30,000 workers. Atthe end of the year 2000, the total po pula tionhad increased to 4.33 million, and its labourforce to 3.09 million. Around 30 per cent ofthe population are categorised as permanentresidents who have come from major citiesas state officials, entrepreneurs, technicians,and skilled workers. About 70 per cent areclassed as temporary residents, a statuswhich means that they do not have theofficial household registration entitlingthem to citizenship in Shenzhen. In 2000, thetotal number of temporary residents was3.08 million, which constitutes almost theentire labour force in Shenzhen, the majoritybeing migrant labourers from rural areas.

The rapid economic development ofShenzhen and the advancement of itsposition in the global economy is dependenton the extraction of female labour from therural areas. The process of 'globalising'Shenzhen has depended on cheap and


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3 0 Gender and D evelopment'com pliant' female labour, in the develop-ment of export-processing industries. In ourstudies in garment and electronics plants inShenzhen, we found that more than 90 percent of the total labour force in the lightmanufacturing industries was young,female, and under 25 years of age. Allwomen workers were classified as ruralpeasant workers, or mingong. No matter howlong they had worked in Shenzhen, theycould never be classified as formal workers.Lacking the right to stay in the city, mostwere accommodated in the workers'dormitories provided by their employers.

Migrant workers and thedormitory labour regimeThe 'dormitory labour regime' in Chinacontributes to an exploitative employmentsystem. This regime links with labourmigration and reproduction cycles in therural communities, serves global production,and generates hidden costs which areborne bywomen workers. Local govern-ments compete for foreign investment,openly neglecting legal regulations andsocial provisions. The costs of labourreproduct ion , such as educat ion andgeneral welfare, are entirely undertaken bythe rural communities which subsidisewages, accommodation and consumption.Wages of migrant workers areequal tothose of ten years ago, or are declining, butthe lack of residential status in the cityprecludes the formation of aworking-classforce which could work for the labourrights of migrant w orkers.The shrinking of the government role inlabour provisions has resulted in a lack ofsocial and labour protections for ruralmigrant w orkers. Deprived of their rights tostay in the city, there is almost no long-termplanning for education, training, housing,medical care, and social welfare to accom-modate the new working class. Ashalf-peasants, half-workers, migrant labourershave ambiguous citizenship rights and weak

bargaining pow er. They are forced to leavethe city if they lose their job, no m atter howlong they have been working there.Without state protections, female migrantworkers resort to the support of familialnetworks. These networks facilitate m igrationflows and job searches, circulate workinformation, and help workers cope withfactory life and hardship in the city. Most ofthe invisible costs assumed by familialnetworks have the effect of benefitingindus try. Such costs include labour recruit-ment, training, and discipline. Reliant onlabour networks to train workers, and toassist with their adjustment to factory life,manage ment continues to maximise profitand promote the precarious employmentsystem in China.

In order to illustrate how the precariousemployment system arises in China we willlook at labour use, including workingconditions, migration and reproductioncycles. We will show that the patriarchalculture in rural China that affects themigration process and reproduction oflabour also shapes the labour conditions inspecial economic zones. O ur research coversfive factories where CWWN has assisted inlong-term organising in the workers'dormitories since 2000. We conductedorganising activities as well as research withmore than 1,500 women workers in thesegarment factories.Women, family, andreproductionIt is often stressed that the low status ofChinese women is rooted in the Chinesefamily system, which is pat r i l inea l ,patr i local , and pat r ia rchal in na tu re .Women in rural China were traditionallydeprived of the means of production andthe r ight to land , and their personalautonomy was totally submerged undermale au thor i ty . They were temporarymember s of their natal families, ands t r ange r s / in t rude r s in the i r husbands '


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]Nomen workers in Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, China 31families Qohnson, 1983). Women were bominto a system where they were essentiallypowerless. Their labour would be given toanother family, and they were thereforeconsidered as 'water spilled on the.groimd',as one Chinese saying goes. No familywould invest time and money in educatingdaughters who one day would become thedaughter-in-law of someone else.

Forty years' experience of socialism inChina did not fulfill its promise of 'wom en 'sliberation', which was one of the significantrevolutionary goals. The priorities of economicand political development overshadowedthe goals of social change, sacrificing w om en'semancipation.Socialism and patriarchy have to dateexisted together in harmonious stability. Theconfiguration of a patrilocal/patrilineal/patriarchal family system has been evenfurther consolidated in the reform period ofrecent years. When land w as restored to thehousehold, when the m ale household-headrepresented all female interests, women'srights and situation further deteriorated(Croll, 1985). Worse still, the governm ent's

one-child policy controls not only w om en'sfertility, bu t also their bodies , sexuality, andpersonal autonomy. Consequently neithersocialist revolution nor reformist trans-formation created more opportunity forwomen to expand their horizons.Most of the factory women whom weinterviewed knew qu ite well before they lefttheir villages that they were going to beimprisoned in sweatshops for twelve hours

each day, earning about five or six hundre drenminbi (US$60-72) each month. The youngestwoman in the workplaces was 16, and theoldest was 46; they all knew that the factoryboss would not treat them as equal humanbeings. They knew there was ahuge gapbetween industrial life and rural life. Theyknew they were going to sell their bodies.They knew almost everything.

Dong: 'It's not the first timeI've gone out working'Dong was a rural female migrant workertypical ofher generation. At the age of 23,she was an exper ienced dagongmei(working daughter) and had been workingin Cuangdong for more than four years.Dong was bom in a relatively poor villagein Hunan. She grew up along with China'srapid economic reform over the past20 years. As the eldest daugh ter, her fatherasked her to quit her junior secondaryschool at the age of 16, when her youngerbrother entered secondary school.7 thought I could earn more money in the SpecialEconomic Zone. I knew quite well what theworking conditions might be , and how much Icould earn before I went out to work. I knew itwasnot easy to work in a big city wh ich was a totallystrange place to me. But I thought it was stillworth it to try, and it was a chance for me to lookat the outside world.'She went back home almost every year.Every time she returned, she brought backabout two thousand yuan ($240) to herfather, which w as more than the total of herfamily's income. The family was happywith her contribution, and she was satisfiedtoo. 'The first time I saw my father and mothersmile so happily, I knew that there is big gapbetween urban life and rural life. M y parents atfirst could not believe that I earned twothousand yuan within five months.'But for Dong, the life of the outside worldbecame less and less interesting as sheworked in Shenzhen for four years. 'I do feeltired. The working hours are too long. It's toohard. What's worse, I could never have hopedto stay in the city. My hukou (householdregistration) is in the village.^ Last New Year,I went back home and thought that I would notcome out again. I stayed home for two monthsand I slept, slept all the day.' Butwith herenergy and health restored, she felt bored athome and w ent out working again. She hada boyfriend living in a nearby village, andthey agreed toget married the next year.


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3 2 Gender and DevelopmentShe knew that after marriage she might haveno chance to work in the city again. So, eventhough industrial work was very arduousand exploitative, she still wanted to enjoyher personal 'freedom' outside the villagefor a little more time. Saving some of themoney for her future married life wasanother consideration. 'Life will be happy if myhusband and my parents-in-law treat me nice.But no one know s. It's better for me to have somemoney of my own.'Thus the individual life cycle, thewomen's transitional life period betweenpuberty and marriage, has meshed withsocial time, the transitional period of thesocialist economy fusing with globalcapitalism.Uprooting labour rightsBesides labour control, population controlis another of China's strategies to recruitlabour . Populat ion control inChina isaffected by a system called hukou, house-hold registration, which was formally setup in 1958. The hukou system inChinadetermined not just where aperson couldlive, but also the person's entire lifechances - social rank, wage, welfare, foodrations, and housing (Solinger, 1991). In thepre-Reform era, there was only one strictsystem of hukou: the registered urbanpermanent residence and rural permanentresidence. Peasants, with their fate sealedby the rural hukou, were banned fromleaving the land for more than threedecades. Loopholes did exist, but in termsof numbers, illegal migration was neverable to challenge the social order that waspolarized between the rural peasantry andthe urban working class.

Shenzhen was the first city to change itshukou system dramatically in the early1980s. Besides the former permanenthousehold registration, temporary householdregistration has been issued to temporarylabourers. In Shenzhen the hukou system iswell connected with labour control. Rural

migrants are hired by enterprises andapproved as temporary labourers, after thepayment of Increased City Capacity Fee.Enterprises should then apply to the PublicSecurity Bureau for a certificate oftemporary residence registration, and to thepolice station for a temporary hukouregistration. And, finally, they should applyto the District P ublic Security Bureau for aTemporary Residence Certificate, so thattheir workers can become legal tempo raryworkers in Shenzhen. The temporaryresidence is for one year only: it needs to berenewed annually, for a fee. The strategy oflocal governments is to change rural labourregularly. Local officials openly declaredthat if there was work, rural labour could begiven a temporary residence. Howev er, ifthere was no work, they would have toleave, so the local government would nothave to bear the burdens of urbanisation.

The houkou system's d istinction betweenpermanent and temporary residents allowsthe state to shirk its obligation to providehousing, job security, and welfare to ruralmigrant workers. The labour of the ruralpopulation is needed , but once their labourceases to be necessary they can no longersurvive in the city. This newly formingworking class is not permitted to form rootsin the city. The hukou system, mixed withlabour control, has created a deformedcitizenship, which has disadvantaged Chinesemigrants attempting to transform them-selves into urban workers. The term mingong,'peasant-workers' or temporary workers,blurs the lines of identity between peasantand worker (Solinger, 1999).

Housing, education, and other infra-structural services are not provided by theShenzhen Covernment to the temporaryresidents. Migrant workers them selves arenot rightful citizens and, moreover, theirfamily members are not allowed to live inShenzhen unless they too can find a job andacquire the status of temporary worker.Marriage and childbirth cannot beregistered in Shenzhen. Officially these


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Women workers in Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, C hina 33workers are still regarded as peasants andare supposed to have support from theirfamilies in the ru ral areas. The cost of labourreproduction is entirely borne by the ruralsociety.

Normally a worker, usually female, willspend three to five years working as a wagelabourer in an industrial city before ge ttingmarried. The long-term planning of lifeactivities such as marriage, procreation, andfamily are all expected in rural communities.Given that there is a great labour su rplus inrural China, it is almost unnecessary for theurban government to consider the long-termreproduction of labour.Most workers in Shenzhen live in factorydormitory buildings, with about 50 workersaccomm odated in one flat or house b uilt ofwood and iron sheet, provided by theiremployers. However, since the temporarylabourers are not officially recognised asworkers, or gongren, the factories do notrecognise them as such either. One companydirector said that the workers whom theypreviously employed in Hong Kong werestill under the protection of the labour law inHong Kong, and they could not dismiss theworkers arbitrarily without compensation.In Shenzhen, howe ver, they could dism issworkers at any time they wanted to.Working conditionsThe notorious working conditions in thespecial economic zones and industrialtowns inChina can be attributed to th e'dormitory labour regime'. With accom-modation t ied to employmen t , theemployer has control over the non-workinglife of the worker. With extended working,the employer can make it vir tual lyimpossible for workers to search foralternative employment. And the dormitorylabour regime relies on young workers whocan be easily controlled (Smith and Pun,2003).

Dormitories are predominantly ownedby local authorities and rented to factory

owners. Increasingly however, foreign-invested firms are building their own dorm sto suit their own particular needs; typically,these facilities are within com pounds flankingthe factory. In these settings, the spatialintegration between working and non-working life is tighter, and companies, ratherthan the state, play a more commanding rolein controlling w orkers' lives.China Wonder Garments is a relativelysmall subcontracting garment factory set upin Shenzhen in 1989. China Wonder movedto Shenzhen from Hong Kong, attracted bylower production costs, cheaper land andlabour, and the fact that the local stateprovided a better investment contractpackage, including lower taxes, manage-ment fees, and rents for a larger factorycompound.China Wonder has a workforce of 600,and is under a Hong Kong director who hassole authority over the operation andmanagement of the factory, with aquasi-paternalistic style of management. It issituated in the middle of the globalsubcontracting chain, producing garmentsfor Hong Kong buyers, who take theirproduction orders from American andEuropean corporations.At the time of our research, bothproduction and dormitory premises wererented from the local district government,which charged the company an additionalmanagement fee. Both production facilitiesand working environment were relativelypoor, but there w as no strong incentive toupgrade. The management knew that therewas international pressure to improve theworking and living conditions throughcodes of conduct. The Director hadsubscribed to the Disney Code of Conduct (aset of company codes on labour stand ardsused to regulate subcontractors or suppliersin China since the mid 1990s), which wasdisplayed on the wall in Chinese. He saidthat as these codes only gave verbal adviceand no resources, they w ere not consideredparticularly helpful. Moreover, while a


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3 4 Gender and Developmentbenchmark for the owner, they were alsosaid to be 'windo w dressing'. It was stressedthat profit m argins were so tight, there wasno room for additional costs.Nearly all the workforce in ChinaWonder were rural migrant workers fromthe provinces of Guangdong, Hunan, Hubei,Jiangxi, Anhui, and Sichuan. The only localsof Shenzhen were the accountant and thehousekeeper of the company. Housingthese migrant workers was difficult andexpensive, according to the housekeeper,though only very basic housing facilitieswere provided. The dormitory building, ofthree storeys, was just adjacent to theproduction building, which required only atwo-minute walk to the shop floor, thuseasily facilitating a 'just-in-time' laboursystem. Each dormitory room housed 12-16workers and was very crowded, lackedventilation or adequate lighting, andprovided absolutely no private or individualspace. Workers on each floor sharedcommunal toilets and bathroom s at the endof the corridor. The management admittedthat the living conditions w ere very poor,but blamed the local government for notproviding enough space for adequatedormitory facilities. The dormitory bu ildingwas built to accommodate 500 workers only,but it always had more than 600 workers.

The dorms provided by China Wonderwere 'free', and no deposit for accom-modation was required. A hierarchy for thespatial arrangement in lodging reinforced ahierarchy of labour. M anagerial, technical,and supervisory staff m embers were sharingtwo per room, although these rooms werealso very basic. Neo-paternalism in thisworkplace was reflected in the managerialstyle, as well as in the company reliance onfamily networks for recruitment. As anexample, a supervisor in charge of 60workers in the finishing un it had 12 relativesin the factory, and he had been with thecompany for six years. With 600 workers inthe factory, it needed only about 50 familiesto be responsible for all recruitmen t. Accessto the factory w as therefore totally network-

depend ent, and strangers could not get in.Within this 'extended internal labourmarket', job irvformation was usually passedto kin.In China Wonder, the Finishing Unitsupervisor took six years to weave his familynetwork, connecting ind ividuals to differentwork positions. Acting as a paternalisticpatron, he needed no t only to take care of hisrelatives and co-villagers' daily lives andaccommodation, but also was responsiblefor their work behaviou r on the sho p floor.All the family members recruited need to beresponsible, and this fact might have theeffect of policing the performance of theworker; if the family m embers let the familydown, they let the team dow n, and payment,which is strongly performance-based,would suffer. This resulted in mu tual obli-gations, as well as mutual control and groupdiscipline in the workplace. Thus, labourmobility was balanced by this self-regulatednetwork, which served as a stabiliser,ma intaining a constant labour force for thedormitory labour regime.

Freedom of movementChina Wonder stressed tight control andrestrictive measures to regulate workers,who came from more than five provinces.The company kept the workers' identitycard, as well as enforcing a system ofdeposits. In addition to the token DisneyCode, China W onder had its own code, thereal one, which was far more detailed anddisciplinary. After entering the company,every worker received ahandbook whichcontained more than 50 provisions.The working hours were very long;overtime w ork on Sundays and every nightwas expected. The workers in China Wonderworked from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. If there wererush o rders, the workers could be requestedto work until midnight. Twelve workinghours per day was normal for the workers; arest day would be provided only if there wasa break of produ ction orders , or in the lowseason. This meant that the w orkers worked


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Women workers in Shenzhen Special Economic Zone, China 3 5between 72 hours and 77 hours each week,far m ore than the working hours allowed byChinese law (40 hours each week, and 36hou rs' overtime work per m onth). It openlyViolated the Chinese Law and the DisneyCode. At the beginning of 2002, the factorycontinued to operate on 1 January, theNational Day, which was a statutoryholiday. In addition, workers had to work onSunday 24 February after the Chinese NewYear holiday, which was in violation of thecode providing one day off in seven.According to Chinese law, overtime onnormal workday s has to be paid at 150 percent of normal wages, 200 per cent when onrest days, and 300 per cent during statutoryholidays. Most of the workers would notknow the Chinese labour law, since therewere no educational or promotion pro-gramm es. Most workers, in particular thosein the cutting, sewing, packing, and quality-control sections, were paid on a piece-ratebasis. Other wo rkers and apprentices w erepaid on an hourly basis, while m anagementstaff were on a monthly payroll. For thoseworkers paid on a piece-rate basis, theovertime premium was paid according tothe law as far as normal workdays wereconcerned. Wages for overtime during restdays, however, did not conform to the law.Work on Saturday was thus not consideredovertime, which was classified only asSunday work and work after 8 p.m.Overtime was paid at the 1.5 rate only.

The workers interviewed, for their part,did not have a clear understanding of whenthe overtime prem ium was paid, and wereunder the impression that overtime waspaid only in the evenings, and not onSaturdays or Sundays, since both thecompany and the workers would takeevening work as overtime wo rk. Overtimework was not voluntary, as stipulated byChinese law and the Disney Code. Incontradiction of the law, the worker'shandbook stated: 'When the workers cannotdo overtime, they have to apply to thesupervisors for a written exemption fromovertime.' While the w orkers welcomed the

possibUity to work overtime, they consideredthat they could not refuse it, especiallyduring the high season.Wages in China W onder were relativelyhigh. However, w orkers received more onlybecause of the excessive hou rs that they hadto work. The paternalistic dorm itory labourregime provided absolute lengthening ofworking hours, and double extraction oflabour power through absolute control oflabour time and living space.ConclusionBecause of the obvious violations of thecompany codes and Chinese law in most ofthe transnational companies, the ChineseWorking Women Network joined with theClean Clothes Campaign in 2002 on a pilotproject to set up a monitoring system inChina. The precarious employment systemin China has come about through a mixtureof global, national, and local factors. Theselocal particulars are often overlooked in theglobal trade analysis. The migration cycle,women's struggle against the patriarchalculture, and the huge rural-urban dividehave cont r ibu ted to women workers 'acceptance of low-waged work in the city.The great labour surplus in Chinaexacerbates this low-waged but efficientproduction system, suiting the 'race to thebottom' production strategies of capital.Local government has removed workers'basic labour and civil rights, andtransferred the cost of labour reproductionto rural communit ies. The absence ofresidential rights has created a highlyexploitative situation in which workerscannot easily organise themselves.

The dormitory labour regime housesmore than one hundred million migrantworkers in China. These workers are m ostlyyoung, single, and female, toiling twelvehours a day in garment, electronics and toyfactories. Apply ing long and flexible labourhours, wh ile incurring low production cost,and maintaining strict control over workinglives, this dormitory labour regime is a new


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3 6 Gender and D evelopmentcreation in China. Women workers'organisations are needed to safeguardwo rkers' rights in a context where neitherstate nor capital is agenuine regulator oflabour standards.Pun Ngai is the President of the ChineseWorking Wom en Network. She is also ananthropologist teaching at Division of SocialScience, Hong Kong University of Science andTechnology. [email protected] The wom en workers are recruited fromthe rural communities, where education,

t ra in ing , housing and the genera lwelfare are provided. The reproductionof the next generation of labour is againshouldered by the rural villages whichprovide surplus labour.2 No one can change his/her identi tyexcept under state planning. In somecases university graduates were allowedto change their hukou towork in bigcities, because they were consideredprofessionals.

ReferencesCroll, Elisabeth (1985) Women andDevelopment in C hina: Production andReproduction, Ceneva: In terna t ionalLabour Office.Johnson, Kay Ann (1983) Women, the Familyand Peasant Revolution in China, Chicagothe Lfniversity of Chicago Press.Smith, Chris and Ngai Pun, 'Putting theTransnational Labour Process in itsPlace: The Dormitory Labour Regime inPost-Socialist China', paper presented atInternational Labour ProcessConference, Bristol, April 2003.Solinger, Dorothy (1991) China's Transients

and the State: a Form of Civil Society?,Hong Kong: Hong Kong Institute ofAsia-Pacific Studies, the ChineseUniversity of Hong Kong, p.8.Solinger, Dorothy (1999) ContestingCitizenship in Urban China, Berkeley:University of California Press.


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Documents

Ngai, P. 2004. Women Workers and Precarious Employment