Faculty of Law University of Toronto
Globalization, Law & Justice Workshop Series
presents
Cynthia Estlund
New York University Law School
China’s Labour Question:
Will a Hundred Flowers Bloom?
(by Cynthia Estlund and Seth Gurgel)
4:10 – 6:00 PM
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Solarium (room FA2) – Falconer Hall
84 Queen’s Park
If the workers of the world are united in anything today, it may be in the degree to which their working lives and their futures are being shaped by China. China is changing the world in ways that no serious student of labor law and labor relations can afford to ignore. But China and its labor relations regime are changing as well. The most populous nation in the history of the world is grappling before our 21st century eyes (albeit partly behind closed doors) with the question of how to define the rights and entitlements of workers and the shape of labor relations within a partially capitalist market economy. This paper takes a “topographical” and comparative approach, pointing out what is (or seems) familiar, what is (or seems) distinctive, and perhaps what is most interesting, about these Chinese debates and developments to a North American audience. It ventures the following thesis: What seems to have served China's workers best in recent years, and what seems most likely to allow for further progress, is the proliferation of multiple channels for the expression and redress of grievances; yet that very multiplicity runs against the grain of China's political culture, and sometimes against the letter and spirit of the law, to a degree that is surprising for observers steeped in a pluralist ethos.
Refreshments will be served.
For more workshop information, please contact Nadia Gulezko at n.gulezko@utoronto.ca.
