Elaine Sio-ieng Hui

Legalization of labour relations in post-socialist China and its effect on labour activism

My PhD research examines the coercive and hegemonic role of the Chinese legal system in securing the acquiescence of the working class to capitalist wage relations. Also, it seeks to study to what extend it simultaneously constrains and breeds working class resistance, and under what circumstances workers obey, contest or transgress the legal constraints and hegemonic boundary. These are questions of great social relevance as the legal system in China has been attached greater weight in the reformed period, which helps channel workers’ grievance to the legal procedures and pre-empt their collective actions