To empower or constrain? How emergent interest representation transformed workers’ collective action in South China

It is commonly assumed that the best way to strengthen workers’ voice in authoritarian contexts such as China is through the institutionalisation of collective interest representation. This article argues that this assumption oversimplifies and exaggerates the gains that can be expected, particularly when workers have previous experience in taking other forms of collective action. Revisiting the aftermath of the watershed 2010 strike wave in South China, it shows that trade union and collective bargaining reforms have had two constraining effects for workers. First, they were designed to curb rank-and-file activism; and second, they forced worker representatives to moderate their demands and practices. The article argues that these constraints are inherent in collective interest representation. In doing so, it challenges the prevailing consensus that collective interest representation strengthens labour voice in China, and two derived assumptions: the attribution of constraints on workers’ voice to authoritarianism; and the inferiority of autonomous forms of collective action to collective interest representation. These challenges are contextually supported by the failure of trade union and collective bargaining reforms to match the material and institutional gains achieved by workers’ autonomous action during the status ante. The article suggests that collective interest representation should be assigned a more modest role in the pursuit of labour voice, and that research should instead be recalibrated towards the study of different forms, logics and effects of workers’ collective action.