The Labor Condition and Strategy of Domestic Workers in China

• Main Authors: Du, Chia-Chia, 杜嘉佳
• Other Authors: Chen, Ming-Chi
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2016
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/06296696181590721484

碩士 === 國立清華大學 === 社會學研究所 === 104 === The present study looks at domestic workers in Beijing, examining the process of resistance and action by domestic workers after China’s reform and exploring the context of the interaction of institutional factors such as national policy, market operations, and institutional arrangements. At present, Beijing has nearly 400,000 domestic workers. As domestic works are employed in a private capacity, they do not have access to the protection of labor laws. In addition, the personalization of labor sites and the labor process has left domestic workers in a very precarious labor situation. Organization and training through outside NGO intervention has increased awareness of the rights of domestic workers to some extent and created a broad appeal to the public to recognize the importance of collective action for protecting basic labor rights. Despite external collective action, due to the special working relations of domestic workers, no fundamental change in their actual working conditions has been achieved. Therefore, it is necessary to further investigate their labor situation at the micro level. The present study found that NGOs play an extremely critical role in the process of resistance and action by domestic workers. NGOs use a variety of strategies to awaken rights consciousness among domestic workers. Aside from resistance and fighting for rights at the collective level, empowerment by external organizations also enables organized domestic workers to develop new resistance capabilities and strategies from the past, enabling them to improve their labor conditions at the individual level, and experience a new type of subjectification. Although the formation of the subject in these actors is produced by organizational mobilization rather than endogenously, nevertheless, the collective action of domestic workers presents a different type of possibility for expression and resistance among disadvantaged groups in China.