Regular and Agency Workers: Attitudes and Resistance in Chinese Auto Joint Ventures

This paper focuses on agency workers in China's auto industry. Some scholars foresee that this new category of workers, particularly in the auto industry, will play a leading role in global labour resistance. In this context, we conducted a questionnaire survey of 483 regular and agency workers at five major auto joint ventures in China and compared their work conditions, job satisfaction and willingness to take collective actions. Based on these findings, we argue that these companies have good reasons to keep the gap in wages and in work conditions small. This, along with management practices inherited from the Maoist system, can mitigate workers' dissatisfaction and reduce their tendency to take militant actions.