Worker Activism and Enterprise Union Reform in China: A Case Study of Grassroots Union Agency in the Auto Parts Industry

Research on Chinese trade unions has privileged a state-centred, structuralist approach, while the question of union agency has remained undertheorized. Seeking to overcome this limitation, this article examines the agency, the strategies and practice, and the limits and potentials of enterprise union reform in China's auto parts industry driven by worker activism since the wave of auto strikes in 2010. Drawing on in-depth fieldwork conducted in Guangzhou and Chongqing between 2011 and 2017, the authors reveal variegated but constrained grassroots union agency and identify four key factors to explain the variations in the operation and reform of enterprise unions. Contrary to the common perception that Chinese trade unions are of no value to workers, the authors argue that, driven by worker activism and under specific circumstances, democratically elected enterprise unions are able to exploit certain operational space within the existing political and institutional constraints to carry out substantive collective bargaining and adaptive, incremental reforms, which have improved workers' material well-being and union representativeness and effectiveness. However, given the authoritarian regime and state-controlled union structure, the space for grassroots union agency is severely restricted and contingent on broader political and economic environments. With growing state repression, the future of worker-driven grassroots union reform is unclear.