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Inside China's automobile factories

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In Inside China's Automobile Factories, Lu Zhang explores the current conditions, subjectivity, and collective actions of autoworkers in the world's largest and fastest-growing automobile manufacturing nation. Based on years of fieldwork and extensive interviews conducted at seven large auto factories in various regions of China, Zhang provides an inside look at the daily factory life of autoworkers and a deeper understanding of the roots of rising labor unrest in the auto industry. Combining original empirical data and sophisticated analysis that moves from the shop floor to national political economy and global industry dynamics, the book develops a multilayered framework for understanding how labor relations in the auto industry and broader social economy can be expected to develop in China in the coming decades.

Title Inside China's automobile factories : the politics of labor and worker resistance / Lu Zhang. [electronic resource]
Publisher Cambridge : Cambridge University Press
Creation Date 2015
Notes Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).
Includes bibliographical references and index.
English
Content Cover
Half-title
Title page
Copyright information
Dedication
Table of contents
List of figures
List of tables
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
1 Introduction
Ethnography inside China's automobile factories
The potential of ""cellular"" activism
Autoworkers and workplace bargaining power
The argument in brief
Uneven contradiction and labor politics
Industrial dynamics
Contradictory state and regime legitimacy
Revolutionary and State-Socialist legacies
Legitimacy leverage
The outline of the book
2 Industrial restructuring and labor force transformation in the Chinese automobile industryPre-reform development and socialist legacy in the Chinese automobile industry
The development and restructuring of the Chinese automobile industry in the reform era
Development strategy and industrial policy of the central government
State-led ""Triple alliance"" and hegemonic labor regime, 1980s-mid-1990s
Industrial restructuring and intensified competition, mid-1990s to present
Changing workplace and labor regime
The transformation of the production workforce and the rise of labor force dualismConclusion
3 The labor market and social composition in the automobile industry
Constructing flexible labor markets and the evolution of labor force dualism
The rise of labor dispatch and the supply of temporary agency workers
The marketization of vocational education and the supply of student workers
The structure of the labor market in the automobile industry
Social composition and the labor market of formal workers
Recruitment strategies and hiring standards
Social composition and the labor market of temporary workersWage conditions in the Chinese automobile industry
Conclusion
4 Organization of production and factory social order
The organization of production: A leaner version of the mass production paradigm
Just-in-Time (JIT) mass production
Organization on the shop floor
Rotation and skill training
Mechanization, standardization, and ""human wave tactics""
Working conditions
Personnel system, HRM practice, and factory social order
The cadre-manager personnel system
The enterprise union
Job classifications, status, and factory hierarchyJob classifications at USA-1
The rise of meritocracy: Performance appraisals and the position-merit wage system
The operation of internal labor markets and the structure of opportunity
5 Hegemonic consent? Formal workers' compliance and resistance
Collective characteristics of formal workers: Youngsters and veterans
Hopeful youngsters: Aspirations to ""Exit"" from the line
Cynical veterans: ""Voice"" with no faith in change
Workplace grievances and bargaining power of formal workers
Labor force dualism and job security of formal workers
Extent 1 online resource (xvi, 240 pages) : digital, PDF file(s).
Language English
National Library system number 997011504868305171
MARC RECORDS

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