The Self-Organization and the Power of Female Informal Workers: A Case Study of the Cooperative Production Team in the Garment Industry in the Yangtze River Delta (非正规就业中的女工自组织与劳工力量—以嘉兴服装业的合作生产队为例)

In China and beyond, garment industries are often dominated by female informal laborers. Existing studies on female informal workers have focused on describing the poor working conditions such as low wages, high risk, lack of job security, and gender segmentation, and analyzing the reasons behind them. However, there is little discussion on the associational power of these informal workers. Based on surveys and field studies in the garment industries in the Yangtze River Delta conducted between 2011 and 2013, this article explores the cooperative production team formed by the women workers and attempts to explain how female informal workers can gain the associational power to enhance labor standards and obtain control over the labor process. The findings of this study indicate the possibility of labor solidarity in informal employment and also expand our discussion on the power of female workers.无论从中国还是全球来看，服装制造业都是一个在用工模式上既是女性主导又是非正规就业集中的产业。而以往诸多对非正规就业女工的研究中，研究者往往侧重于对工人低工资、高风险、低保障、性别区隔等情况的描述以及造成这些状况的原因的分析，但是缺乏对工人组织性力量的分析。基于在2011–2013年于长三角服装业进行的问卷调查和田野研究数据，本文以嘉兴服装业的合作生产队为例，分析女工是如何形成组织性的力量，从而获得更高的工资水平和对劳动过程的控制能力。本项研究的发现一方面指出了中国非正规就业中工作形态的多样性和变化性，另一方面也拓展了对于非正规就业中劳工组织和劳工力量问题的讨论。 (This article is in Chinese.)