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The Non-precariat in the Informal Sector

The Non-precariat in the Informal Sector. A study of female-led cooperative production team in garment industry of China Fan Lulu & Pun Ngai Department of Applied Social Sciences The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. 1 Female workers in the informal sector

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The Non-precariat in the Informal Sector

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  1. The Non-precariat in the Informal Sector A study of female-led cooperative production team in garment industry of China Fan Lulu & Pun Ngai Department of Applied Social Sciences The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

  2. 1 Female workers in the informal sector 1.1 Informality as a tendency in the globalization era 1.2 Informal employment and female workers 2 Research Methodology 2.1 Industry selection 2.2 Research sites and research method 2.3 The overview of the research object 3 Research findings 3.1 Why workers have choices? 3.2 The reason to work in informal sector 3.3 The self-organizing of workers in informal sector 4 Discussion and conclusions 4.1 The gendered structural power 4.2 Class, gender, localism and workers’ associational power Outline

  3. 1 Female workers in the informal sector

  4. 1.1 Informality as a tendency in the globalization era

  5. The scale of informal employment in China Source: Hu, 2002; Huang, 2013

  6. 1.2.Informal employment and female workers Source: http://wiego.org/informal-economy/wiego-network-holistic-framework It seems that women have more possibilities to drift into precariat than men.

  7. According to our study of garment industry in Yangtze River Delta Region (YRD in short) of China, we find that many workers who possess stronger marketing bargaining power choose to work in informal sector voluntarily. Some local, skilled women workersorganizecooperative production teams to enhance their associational power. They launch collective bargaining with agents who subcontract production orders to them and obtain higher wages than regular workers in formal sector.

  8. This study may provide some insights on the following questions: • The reasons why workers become informal labors; • Whether informal workers always earn fewer for the same position than their formal counterparts; and • How could female workers in the informal sector protect their rights and benefits

  9. 2. Research Methodology

  10. 2.1. Why study garment sector? 2.1.1.The prevalence of informal employment in garment industry

  11. 2.1.2. Garment is a female-dominated industry in China Source: China Labour Statistical Yearbook (2004--2013)

  12. 2.2. Research sites and research method 2.2.1.Pilot study in six cities of YRD (from December 2011 to August 2012) The existed researches about Chinese garment industry mainly focus on the Pearl River Delta (Pun, 1994; Ren and Pun, 2006; Gao, 2006; Pun and Smith, 2007; Chan and Siu, 2009; Liu, 2011; Huang, 2012). Little is known about the situation of Yangtze River Delta Regions.

  13. The six categories of China’s garment workers by the nature of production organization

  14. The Organization of Production in Jiaxing

  15. 2.2.2. Investigation in Jiaxing and Shanghai In January 2013, 121 garment factory workers’ questionnaires were collected in Shanghai and Jiaxing. Many of our interviewees work in large factories. The findings show the working conditions of employees in the formal sector.

  16. 2.2.3. Fieldwork study in Jiaxing, Huzhou and Hangzhou From March to August 2013, Fan Lulu did the participant observation investigation in two factories in Jiaxing. The subcontracted workshops and home workers working for these two factories as well as small workshops in Huzhou and Hangzhou were also studied in this period. More than 15 production units and 640 workers are involved in the participant observation and investigation.

  17. 2.3 The overview of the research object

  18. 3. Research findings

  19. 3.1. Why workers have choices?

  20. Labor shortage in labor intensive industries like garment is very serious, especially in coastal areas . According to the data of the Jiaxing labour market report, the demand/supply ratio of cutting and stitching worker is 2.99 in 2011 and 2.45 in 2013. Males take up 53.18% of the applicants. These data indicate skilled women workers possessing strong marketing bargaining power.

  21. The all-round skilled workers in informal sector

  22. 3.2. Reasons for working in informal sector 1） For a higher wages According to investigations’ data of 121 factory garment workers in Shanghai and Jiaxing, the mean of workers’ average month wage of last year is 2684.59 RMB (about 26846 rupee). When divide the average monthly wage by the 12.5 hours a day and 26 days a month, a common working time arrangement in garment factories of YRD, the average hourly wage is 8.26 RMB (about 82.6 rupee).

  23. 2）For the autonomy and dignity of work • Being late or leaving early more than 5 minutes will be deducted 1 RMB for each minute. • Absenteeism for one day will be fined 100 RMB. • Using cell-phone and surfing on the internet are forbidden in working time. Listening to the MP3 and MP4 is also prohibiting. 1 RMB for the first time, 2 RMB for the second time will be fined for the violation and so on. • Eating food is not allowed in the floor, or the violator will be fined 1 RMB each time.

  24. 3）For taking care of household duties The time table of working day in garment factory of YRD

  25. Much more women than men don’t work because of the burden of household duties. No work reasons for both of male and female, residents of cities and rural area Resource: Sixth China Population Census in 2010 （Tan，2013，73）

  26. Working in informal sector is a solution to deal with the work-life conflict. The working time of a homeworker who kits woolen sweater with machine

  27. 3.3.The self-organizing of garment workers

  28. 4.Discussion and conclusions

  29. 4.1 The gendered structural power • The labour shortage is considered as the female workers shortage to a large extent (Cai and Tan, 2006). • The young female workers are in the high demand of employers. 78% of the job posting of Guangdong factory mentions they hope to recruit female workers of 18 to 25 years old in 2004 (Cai and Tan, 2006). • According to the 101 cities’ situation of labor supply, the demand/supply ratio for male is 1.06 and 1.09 for female in the third quarter of 2013.

  30. 4.1.1 The boy preference at birth and the unbalanced sex ratio Table: Population by age and sex (2011)

  31. 4.1.2 The result of the split reproduction mode • For the single reproduction of labor: • The high-intensive work, industry injures and • occupational diseases infringe women • workers’ health and other right. • Lack of support for the social reproduction of labor: • No living wage, lack of social insurance and • support to the special experiences of female: • such as menstrual cycle, period of pregnancy • and giving birth to a child.

  32. 4.2. Class, gender, localism and workers’ associational power

  33. Thank you!

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