Collective bargaining and labor relations governance under the leadership of the state have taken a unique path in China, differing significantly from the models seen in Europe and the United States. This system is driven by a state-led approach, emphasizing legal frameworks and contractualization to manage labor relations effectively. The main goal of the State Council's promotion of collective agreements is not to foster a game between labor and capital but to integrate both parties into a legal structure, ensuring their behaviors are lawful and contract-based.
The state regulates labor relations not merely for control but through indicator management to achieve governance at the grassroots level. Thus, indicator management has become a core strategy for promoting collective bargaining systems. Local governments and trade unions mobilize various resources to meet assessment indicators, aiming to increase the number of collective contracts. In practice, the role of local governments has shifted, with trade unions playing a more active role, transforming the essence of collective bargaining from a labor-management game to a party-and-government union-driven process.
Since the 1920s, collective bargaining has been a central mechanism for adjusting labor relations in Europe and the United States, evolving over decades. However, since the 21st century, due to the decline of industrial organizations and union density, collective bargaining in these regions has shown a trend of overall decline and decentralization. In contrast, China's collective bargaining system, under the state-led model, has taken a different trajectory, achieving high rates of collective contract signing and coverage. Data from the All-China Federation of Trade Unions showed that in 2010, the number of collective contracts nationwide reached 1.407 million, covering 2.438 million enterprises and 184.651 million employees.
Despite the impressive data, there remains a phenomenon where employers and employees are reluctant to engage in negotiations, a fact recognized by the government, academic circles, and even trade unions. This raises questions about how the number and coverage of collective contracts are counted under the state-led model, why there is a significant disparity between statistical results and actual practices, and what collective negotiation mode China has chosen, as well as the forces driving its formation and operation.
This article explores the practice of collective negotiation work at the provincial level, aiming to explain and analyze these questions. Collective bargaining and the state-led model have been studied extensively, with Weber's works being foundational. However, the concept of collective bargaining was initially defined as an institutionalized negotiation relationship between trade unions and employers or employer organizations.
In the UK and the US, collective bargaining emerged in the 1950s, with arbitration and mediation serving as tools for resolving industrial disputes. The concept of collective bargaining evolved to encompass broader negotiations, emphasizing the need for trade unions to maintain and improve members' living standards. The Webbs, while not clearly defining collective bargaining, highlighted the importance of common norms in maintaining worker welfare and stability.
The key advantage of collective bargaining lies in preventing vicious competition among workers and protecting individual workers' rights from employers. Unlike market negotiations, collective bargaining involves negotiating with employers using the collective strength of workers, leading to higher wages and better working conditions. Flanders emphasized that collective bargaining is not just a market negotiation but a process of formulating rules between employers and employees, resulting in labor contracts that mediate interest conflicts.
Dunlop and others viewed collective bargaining as part of a broader network of rules, involving the labor market, government, and external environments. Fox critiqued Flanders’ view, arguing that collective bargaining is not just an economic process but also a political one, often leading to agreements, breakdowns, or strikes. Clegg saw collective bargaining as a core process of industrial democracy, highlighting workers' participation in enterprise management.
Comparing China's collective bargaining with Western models, it is evident that the Chinese system differs significantly in terms of state involvement. While Western models focus on labor-management games, China's system is state-led, with the state playing a crucial role in determining wages and employment conditions. Scholars like Werner and Clarke argue that the state's promotion of collective bargaining aims to fill the vacuum left by the withdrawal of the government from enterprise organization, re-controlling grassroots industrial order.
However, the purpose of the state in promoting collective bargaining is not solely to facilitate labor-management negotiations but to ensure legal and contractual behavior of both employers and employees, thus eliminating contradictions and maintaining a stable operational order. The state's governance strategy involves legalizing and contractualizing labor relations, using indicator management as a core tool. This approach has led to the creation of strategic indicators at the national level, guiding the promotion of collective bargaining work.
Local governments and trade unions use various strategies to complete these indicators, often focusing on quantity and coverage rather than the quality of contracts. This has resulted in a situation where collective bargaining has become an internal assessment and evaluation system, with local governments and trade unions engaging in various tactics to meet targets. Despite these efforts, challenges such as the lack of real negotiation and the formalization of contracts persist.
In conclusion, the current state-led model of collective bargaining in China has transformed the nature of labor relations, shifting from a labor-management game to a party-and-government union-driven process. The emphasis on indicators and performance metrics has led to a focus on quantity over quality, raising concerns about the effectiveness of collective bargaining. Addressing these issues requires a deeper understanding of the state's governance strategies and the need for reform in the collective bargaining system.
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