Resolving and Preventing Workers’ Collective Actions: A Typological Analysis of Government Strategies towards Labour Disputes in China

The thesis examines the Chinese state’s strategies for resolving and preventing collective labour disputes. Key findings of the thesis are threefold. Firstly, focusing on workers’ demands, the thesis identified three types of collective labour disputes in China: disputes over unpaid wages (UW); disputes over compensation at the termination of employment (CTE); and disputes over better working conditions (BWC). Each type of dispute is characterised by workers’ different cognitive liberation, interests, organisation, mobilisation patterns, and forms of collective actions. Secondly, administrative and legal measures, evaluative mediation, and facilitative mediation are three key strategies taken by the Chinese state to resolve UW, CTE and BWC disputes, respectively. Moreover, the Chinese state has been shifting its UW dispute prevention strategy from ‘formalistic’ to effective prevention, while most of its CTE and BWC dispute prevention measures (mainly, collective consultation and tripartite consultation) are implemented in a ‘formalistic’ manner. Finally, the thesis argues that the Chinese state’s choice of dispute resolution and prevention strategies is significantly influenced by the nature of workers’ collective actions and the state’s logic of balancing priorities between economic growth and social stability.