ILR Press Chinese Workers in Comparative Perspective

As the "world’s factory" China exerts an enormous pressure on workers around the world. Many nations have had to adjust to a new global political and economic reality, and so has China. Its workers and its official trade union federation have had to contend with rapid changes in industrial relations. Anita Chan argues that Chinese labor is too often viewed from a prism of exceptionalism and too rarely examined comparatively, even though valuable insights can be derived by analyzing China’s workforce and labor relations side by side with the systems of other nations. The contributors to Chinese Workers in Comparative Perspective compare labor issues in China with those in the United States, Australia, Japan, India, Pakistan, Germany, Russia, Vietnam, and Taiwan. They also draw contrasts among different types of workplaces within China. The chapters address labor regimes and standards, describe efforts to reshape industrial relations to improve the circumstances of workers, and compare historical and structural developments in China and other industrial relations systems. Review Most academic research about the working conditions of Chinese factory workers has been focused on China itself, with little or no reference and comparison to workers and working conditions in other countries. However, this new book edited by Chan (China Research Center, Univ. of Technology, Sydney, Australia) attempts to convince readers that China is not exceptional and that it is critical to use a comparative perspective as an analytical tool to explain Chinas labor conditions.--R.M. Ramazani "Choice" About the Author Anita Chan is a Research Professor at the Australia-China Relations Institute of the University of Technology, Sydney, and a visiting fellow at the Australian National University. She is the editor of Walmart in China, also from Cornell, the author of China’s Workers under Assault: The Exploitation of Labor in a Globalizing Economy, and has published seven other books.