Can Chinese enterprise unions improve employee union identification? Comparative case studies of six subsidiaries of foreign multinational enterprises

Chinese enterprise unions suffer the apparent absence of relevance for employees. In the meantime, local governments and federations of trade unions are increasingly conducting enterprise union reforms with a view to promoting collective bargaining and union democracy. With these two trends occurring simultaneously, the following research questions come to mind: (1) Do collective bargaining and union democracy improve the relevance of trade unions for employees? (2) Do the reforms of collective bargaining and union democracy conducted by local governments and federations of trade unions in China improve the relevance of enterprise unions for employees? In order to explore and explain the variations in employee union identification and employee identification with the employer, this thesis develops a novel theoretical framework consisting of four lines of analysis. This thesis first examines the instrumental and constructivist accounts of employee union identification. The possibility of dual identification, unilateral identification, or dual disidentification opens up a third line of analysis, which focuses on the relationship between employee identification – the configuration combining employee union identification and employee identification with the employer – and the frame of reference for labour relations. Finally, in taking the specificity of the Chinese labour relations system into consideration, this thesis considers the intervention of the Party-State with a view to exploring how such intervention affects union democracy and whether or not there are other factors at play in the relationship between union democracy and the intervention of the Party-State. In order to pursue these four lines of analysis, this thesis drew on the comparative case studies of six subsidiaries of foreign multinational enterprises in, what we label for the purpose of anonymity, the Binhai Economic-Technological Development Area. Two rounds of fieldwork involved interviews in each sample enterprise with the union officer, three to five union committee members, four or five union stewards (when applicable), and five to seven union vi members. The major empirical findings are summarized as follows. First, three types of identity of the Chinese enterprise unions discussed – critical bridging, constructive bridging, and communicative bridging – emerge in terms of the role of the bridge between employees and their employer, which is played by an enterprise union. There is a link between trade union identity and employee identification. Second, employee union identification is associated with union instrumentality and union democracy. Union democracy not only directly affects employee union identification but also affects union instrumentality and in turn, has an indirect impact on employee union identification. Synergies between the frame of reference for labour relations, union strategic capacity, and deliberative vitality lead to union identity construction. Third, the frame of reference ranges from adversarial pluralism to autocratic unitarism, then to consultative unitarism, and finally, to coordinated unitarism. By affecting union instrumentality, the frame of reference indirectly affects employee union identification. The frame of reference also affects the improvement of employee interests by an employer and in turn, has an indirect impact on employee identification with the employer. Finally, the intervention of the Party-State affects union democracy but as moderated by strategic capacity.

Keyphrases: Employee union identification, Employee identification with the employer, Trade union identity, Union instrumentality, Union democracy, Frame of reference for labour relations, Intervention of the Party-State, Union strategic capacity