The staff and workers’ congress under three iterations of Chinese corporatism (1949-2022)

All large Chinese firms are required to convene representative bodies known as staff and workers’ congresses. Through a case study of a large state-owned glass factory, this article examines the evolution of the SWC system from 1949 to the present day. In recent years, there has been a massive expansion of this system, meaning that SWCs have now been at least nominally established in over five million organisations, employing some 250 million workers. Because the system has always operated under state tutelage, we use Philippe Schmitter’s analytical lens of state corporatism to evaluate the extent to which the system has actually served as a vehicle – in the past or the present – for workers to influence factory governance. Changes in the system, we argue, have reflected three iterations of state corporatism. During the first, the new regime briefly established tripartite institutions made up of representatives of the state, labour and capital, but it then mobilised workers to help expropriate capital. The succeeding iteration, in place from the late-1950s to the early-1990s, entailed a direct relationship between the state and labour. The most recent iteration, once again based on a tripartite structure, has taken shape as factories have been converted into profit-oriented corporations. During the first two iterations, the state incorporated workers – in a robust but limited fashion – into factory governance, while in last one, workers have been marginalised.