Worker Congresses in China: Do they matter?

• Published date: 01 January 2024
• Author: Morley K. Gunderson,Byron Y. Lee,Hui Wang
• Date: 01 January 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irel.12336

Industrial Relations. 2024;63:43–58.

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43wileyonlinelibrary.com/jour nal/irel

INTRODUCTION

Unions and Worker Congresse s (formally the Staf f and Worker Representative Congre ss,

hereafter Co ngresses) are t wo institutions that ex ist in the indu strial relat ions landscap e in

China. Th e impact of un ions in China h as been reasonably well docu mented as outli ned sub-

sequently. However, Worker Congresses have not received s uch attention. This is despite t heir

increasi ng prevalenc e in recent yea rs combined w ith the new labor regu lation in 2012 which

formaliz ed and extende d their powers (Schip ani & Liu, 2018; Zhu et a l.,2015 ). For instance,

nationally repr esentative est imates show that the r ange of industri al relations ins titutions in

the workplace (i.e., fir ms with either a union, a Cong ress or both) have increased subst antially

from 2003 to 2011 (Lee et al.,2016 ).

The exami nation of Congresses is pa rticularly time ly due to the increased p ressure on unions

in China a s part of a more gener al campaign a gainst gra ssroots activ ists and organ izations

(Fu & Distelhorst, 2018 ). For example, Lee(2 017 ) charges th at the state has cr acked down on

independe nt unionism an d their non- governmental org anization ( NGO) supporte rs, and by so

doing has under mined workers' capacity to bu ild effective labor organi zations. Kuruvill a(20 18)

likewise ob serves that t he state has rep ressed worker act ivism and charg es that this h as had a

Received : 1 June 2022

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Accepte d: 20 May 2023

DOI: 10.1111/irel.12336

ORIGINA L ARTICL E

Worker Congresses in China: Do they matter?

Morley K.Gunderson1 | Byron Y.Lee2 | HuiWang3

© 2023 Regents of t he University of Ca lifornia (RUC).

The authors h ave made an equal c ontribution to t his paper and a re listed in a lphabetica l order by surna me.

1Center for Indu strial Relati ons and Human

Resource s, and Depar tment of Econom ics,

Universit y of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario,

Canada

2China Eu rope Internat ional Busine ss

School (CEIBS), Sha nghai, Chi na

3Depart ment of Applied E conomics,

Guanghu a School of Manage ment, Beijing,

China

Correspondence

Hui Wang, Depar tment of Appli ed

Economi cs, Guanghu a School of

Management, Beijing, China.

Email: jack ie.wang@gsm.pku.edu.cn

Funding information

The Nationa l Natural Scie nce Foundation

of China, G rant/Award Number: 71671007;

The Socia l Science an d Humanities Re search

Grant of Can ada, Grant/Award Num ber:

435190271

Abstract

We use a survey of privat ely- owned enterp rises spa n-

ning the year s 2006– 2014 and esti mate effect s of Worker

Congresse s on worker welfare outcomes. We fi nd that

Congresse s by themselves h ad positive effec ts on all out-

comes except for wages . Firms with b oth a Congress and

a union had large a nd positive effec ts on all outcome s

refle cting the sum of t heir sepa rate individu al effects,

suggesting t hat they were not substitut e institutions but

rather were comple mentary in an additive fashion.

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GUNDERSON e t al.

chill ing effect on labor orga nizing. However, as part of its shades of authorit arianism, the gov-

ernment ha s tried to balanc e authoritariani sm with placating the w ishes of the populac e (Howell

& Pringle,2 019). As such, it has sup ported the development of alter native institutions that have

enhance d workers' ability to contest the p ower of managers (Long et al.,2022). To the extent th at

Congresse s are an alternative labor in stitution, they may also have impact s on worker outcomes

in the industr ial relations landsc ape. However, despite the increasi ng importance of Cong resses,

there has be en a paucity of empiric al work examining the i mpact of Congresse s to workers given

its potential role as a n advocate for employees (Long et al.,2022).

We contribute to the exist ing literatu re by examin ing the impac t of Congresse s on worker

welfare outcomes , particu larly labor contract s and differ ent aspects of c ompensation. W hile

a cursory exa mination of Cong resses i n China may als o suffer from the sa me issues th at sur-

round unions (Li, 2 014; Liu, 20 14), we propose that Cong resses , as with union s, also have a

positive impact o n worker welfare. More imp ortant, we develop theory that cons iders how the

existenc e of unions by themselves, Cong resses by themselve s, and both Congresses a nd unions

together may funct ion uniquely to pos itively impact worker welfare. T hat is, we dif ferentiate

between f irms w ithout a union or a Congre ss, with only a u nion, with only a Cong ress and

with both a union a nd Congress to understand t heir impacts on workers.

To our knowledge, this is one of the f irst studi es to addres s these quest ions quantitatively.

Extant literat ure has pri marily t aken a qualitative app roach to exami ne the impact of t he

Congresse s (Long et al.,2022) finding that they alte r the distributio n of performanc e pay and

resolve workplace g rievance s, also conclud ing (p. 19) “that the role of congres ses needs t o be

considered i n broader disc ussions of how workers inf luence wa ge determ ination in Ch ina”.

While an e arlier study by Li (2004) esti mated their i mpact on fi rm productiv ity, our study

adds to this l iterature by providing the fi rst quantitative study of the impact of Cong resses on

various compone nts of wor ker welfare— the origina l purpose of such an instit ution.

Moreover, we do so for private enterpris es which differs f rom the extant literature wh ich has

focused on stat e- owned e nterprises or quasi- govern mental organizations (i.e., schools). As the

private sec tor contributes sub stantially to C hina's GDP, it is of critical import ance to under-

stand the effe cts of Congres ses in privat e firm s. Moreover, private fir ms may take dif ferent

strategies t owards how Congresses and unio ns function (Liu,2010), with the n ew legislation in

2012 regarding the Provisions o n the Democratic Man agement of Enterpris es1 particul arly not-

ing their appli cability to private enter prises. In doing so, our study exte nds the industrial rela-

tions literatu re by providing a qua ntitative analysis of th e impact of Congr esses in t he private

sector by exam ining their effec t on worker welfar e, and distinguish ing between fir ms with only

a Congress, on ly a union and firms w ith both a Congress and a union. By ex amining differe nt

components of worker welfare i ncluding ind ividual and col lective contra cts, total co mpensa-

tion as well as its c omponents (i.e., pay and benefits), we provide a more nuanced i nvestigation

into the impac t that Congresses have on differ ent components of worker welfare.

LITERATURE R EVIEW AND THEORY

Worker Congresses in China

While th e impact of Congre sses in China is an ar ea that is under- research ed, there are a nu m-

ber of studie s that outline their evolution and role (Es tlund,2014, 2 017; Feng,2012; Hong,198 4;

1The provision s were jointly es tablished by t he Central Com mission for Dis cipline In spection of th e CPC, the Organ ization

Depart ment of the CPC Cent ral Commi ssion, the State - owned As sets Superv ision and Adm inistratio n Commissio n of the State

Council , the Ministr y of Supervi sion, the All- China Fede ration of Trade Union s, and the All- China Fede ration of Indust ry and

Commerc e on Feb. 13, 2012.