Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-7cvxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T17:47:08.241Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Beyond Tokenism: The Institutional Conversion of Party-Controlled Labour Unions in Taiwan's State-Owned Enterprises* (1951–86)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2012

Ming-sho Ho
Ming-sho Ho*
Affiliation:
National Taiwan University. Email: mingshoho@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article challenges the accepted view that during the period of martial law Taiwan's labour unions were “a useless token.” Focusing on the petroleum and sugar industries, I analyse the incremental process of how party-state control over the labour unions was converted by the workers themselves in Taiwan's national enterprises. In the early 1950s, the KMT's policy of unionizing enterprises was a complementary strategy to reinforce its slow and unsuccessful party-state penetration. With the unions' prominent role in welfare provision, workers were encouraged to develop a sense of stakeholdership. Over the years, labour unions legitimatized the interests of worker members and thus gave rise to an explosion of claim-making activities – what I call “petty bargaining.” By the mid-1980s, labour unions, although still dominated by the KMT, were no longer a Leninist transmission belt, but rather functioned as a de facto complaint centre – an often overlooked precondition for the rise of post-1987 independent labour unionism.

Keywords

labour unionparty-statelabour activisminstitutional conversionLeninismTaiwanKMT
Type
Articles
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 212 , December 2012 , pp. 1019 - 1039
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This research is supported by Taiwan's National Science Council (97-2410-H-110-052-MY3, 100-2410-H-002-129-MY2). The author thanks Patricia Thornton, Steve Tsang, Yubin Chiu and anonymous reviewers for comments and suggestions. The assistance of Chunhao Huang and Mei Lan Huang is appreciated.

References

Bello, Walden, and Rosenfeld, Stephanie. 1990. Dragons in Distress: Asia's Miracle Economies in Crisis. San Francisco: Institute for Food and Development Policy.Google Scholar
Chen, Jiansheng. 1961. “ Jinhou tangye dangwu fazhan fanxiang ” (The direction of party work in the sugar industry from now on). Tangye dangwu (Party Affairs in the Sugar Industry), 65, 17–19.Google Scholar
Chen, Xiaochang. 1968. “Taiwan tanggong fuli” (The Welfare of Taiwanese Sugar Workers). BA thesis, Tunghai University, Taichung.Google Scholar
China Petroleum Company. 1971. Zhongyouren shihua (Stories of CPC People) . Taipei: China Petroleum Company.Google Scholar
China Petroleum Company. 1976. Zhongyou shiyou zhi (A History of Petroleum in China) . Taipei: China Petroleum Company.Google Scholar
China Petroleum Company. 1981. Gaoxiong lianyou zongchang changshiji (A History of the Kaohsiung Refinery) . Kaohsiung: China Petroleum Company.Google Scholar
China Petroleum Company. 1993. Gaoxiong lianyouchang changshiji dierji (A History of the Kaohsiung Refinery: Second Volume) . Kaohsiung: China Petroleum Company.Google Scholar
China Petroleum Company Retired Persons' Association. 2004. Zhongyouren huiyi wenji (The Reminiscences of CPC People) , vol. 1. Taipei: China Petroleum Company.Google Scholar
Chu, Yin-wah. 1996. “Democracy and organized labor in Taiwan.” Asian Survey 36(5), 495–510.Google Scholar
Chu, Yin-wah. 1998. “Labor and democratization in South Korea and Taiwan.” Journal of Contemporary Asia 28(2), 185–202.Google Scholar
Deng, Jiehua. 1995. Shiyou yisheng: Li Dahai huiyilu (Oil as My Life: The Memoir of Li Dahai) . Taipei: Tianxia.Google Scholar
Fan, Yajun. 2004. Zhanhou Taiwan laogong yundong shiliao huibian (Documentary Collection on the Labour Movement in Postwar Taiwan) , vol.1. Taipei: Academia Historica.Google Scholar
Galenson, Walter. 1979. “The labor force, wages and living standards.” In Galenson, Walter (ed.), Economic Growth and Structural Change in Taiwan. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 384–447.Google Scholar
Ho, Ming-sho. 2003. “Democratization and autonomous unionism in Taiwan.” Issues and Studies 39(3), 105–135.Google Scholar
Ho, Ming-sho. 2006a. “Challenging state corporatism: the politics of Taiwan's labor federation movement.” China Journal 56, 107–127.Google Scholar
Ho, Ming-sho. 2006b. “Neo–Centrist labour policy in practice: the DPP and Taiwanese working class.” In Fell, Dafydd et al. (eds.), What Has Changed? Taiwan Before and After the Change in Ruling Parties. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 129–146.Google Scholar
Ho, Ming-sho. 2010. “Manufacturing loyalty: the political mobilization of labor in Taiwan, 1950–1986.” Modern China 36(6), 559–588.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hobsbawm, Eric. 1998. Uncommon People: Resistance, Rebellion and Jazz. New York: New Press.Google Scholar
Hsiao, Hsin-huang Michael. 1992. “The labor movement in Taiwan: a retrospective and prospective look.” In Simon, Dennis Fred and Kau, Michael Y.M. (eds.), Taiwan: Beyond the Economic Miracle. New York: M.E. Sharpe, 151–168.Google Scholar
Huang, Chang-ling. 2002. “The politics of reregulation: globalization, democratization and the Taiwanese labor movement.” The Developing Economies 40(3), 305–326.Google Scholar
KMT Central Committee Fifth Division. 1954. Fangong kang'e shiqi minzhong yundong zhidao fang'an (The Guide Plan for Popular Movement in the Period of Fighting Communism and Russia) . Taipei: KMT.Google Scholar
KMT Central Committee First Division. 1957. Cong gaizao dao chongjian: dang de zuzhi gaikuang (From Reorganization to Rebuilding: The Organizational Condition of the Party) . Taipei: KMT.Google Scholar
KMT Central Committee Historical Commission. 1997. Zhongguo guomindang dangwufazhan shiliao: dangwu gongzuo baogao (Historical Materials of the KMT Party Work Development: Report on Party Work) . Taipei: Modern China.Google Scholar
KMT Central Committee Historical Commission. 1998. Zhongguo guomindang dangwufazhan shiliao: zuxun gongzuo (Historical Materials of the KMT Party Work Development: Work on Organizing and Training) . Taipei: Modern China.Google Scholar
KMT Central Committee Secretariat. 1952. Zhongguo guomindang zhongyanggaizao weiyuanhui huiyi jueyi huibian (The Compilation of the Conclusions of the KMT Central Reorganization Commission Meetings) . Taipei: KMT.Google Scholar
KMT Central Reorganization Commission Cadres' Training Committee. 1952. Dangyuan ziqing yundong yaoyi (The Key Points of Party Members' Self-purification Movement) . Taipei: KMT.Google Scholar
KMT Taiwan Area Post and Communication Commission. 1960. Liunianlai youdian dangwu jiyao (A Summary of the Party Work within the Post and Communication Industry in the Last Six Years) . Taipei: KMT.Google Scholar
Lee, Yung-chieh. 1992. Taiwan gonghui zhengce de zhengzhi jingji fenxi (The Political Economy of Union Policy in Taiwan) . Taipei: Juliu.Google Scholar
Mahoney, James. 2000. “Path dependence in historical sociology.” Theory and Society 29, 507–548.Google Scholar
Mahoney, James, and Thelen, Kathleen. 2010. “A theory of gradual institutional change.” In Mahoney, James and Thelen, Kathleen (eds.), Explaining Institutional Change: Ambiguity, Agency, and Power. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1–37.Google Scholar
Meyer, Alfred G. 1963. Leninism. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Pierson, Paul. 2003. “Big, slow-moving, and … invisible.” In Mahoney, James and Ruschemeyer, Dietrich (eds.), Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 177–207.Google Scholar
Scott, James. 1990. Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcript. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Taisugar.com.tw. 2010. “The Federation of Industrial Unions of the Taiwan Sugar Corporation,” http://www.taisugar.com.tw/TradeUnion/CP.aspx?s=19&n=10065. Accessed 29 July 2010.Google Scholar
Taiwan Petroleum Workers' Union. 1998. Taiwan shiyou gonghui jianjie (A Short Introduction to Taiwan's Petroleum Workers' Union) . Taipei: Taiwan Petroleum Workers' Union.Google Scholar
Thelen, Kathleen. 2003. “How institutions evolve: insights from comparative historical analysis.” In Mahoney, James and Ruschemeyer, Dietrich (eds.), Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 208–240.Google Scholar
Wang, Jenn-hwan. 1993. Ziben laogong yu guojiajiqi: Taiwan de zhengzhi yu shehui zhuanxing (Capital, Labour and State Apparatus: Taiwan's Political and Social Transition) . Taipei: Radical Quarterly in Social Studies Publications.Google Scholar
Xu, Nai. 1954. “Women dangqian de gongzuo luxian” (Our current working strategy). Taiwanqu changye dangwu (Taiwan Area Industrial Party Affairs) , 6, 8–10.Google Scholar
Zhang, Guoxing. 1990. Taiwan zhanhou laogong wenti (Labour Problems in Postwar Taiwan) , 2 vols. Taipei: Council of Formosan Studies.Google Scholar