On October 1, 2001, the Hong Kong-based newspaper, Ming Pao, published an article on the proposed amendments to mainland China’s Trade Union Law in which it was claimed that the right to strike would now be recognized. The Ming Pao article assumed that since the revised law states that unions will negotiate and work to meet the reasonable demands of employees if employees stop working or institute a slow-down, such a provision “signals the government’s tacit consent to workers’ strikes.” (Ming Pao, October 1, 2001)

The Ming Pao article was quoted in several English language press reports and internet news services. By the time the new law was passed on October 27, it was commonly assumed that the right to strike had been recognized. Yet the text of the revised law provides no evidence to support this claim.

The article in the revised law cited in press reports as granting workers the right to strike is Article 27, which replaces Article 25 in the 1992 law. The previous article stated that:
In case of a work-stoppage or a go-slow in an enterprise, the trade union shall, together with the management or the parties concerned, strive for a settlement through consultation on any demands made by the workers and staff members and that are rational and can be met, so as to restore the normal order of production as soon as possible.

Based on the amendments passed on October 27, 2001, Article 27 reads:
In case of a work-stoppage or a go-slow in an enterprise, the trade union shall represent staff and workers in consultation with the enterprise, institution or relevant party, and shall reflect the opinions and demands of staff and workers as well as raise solutions. The enterprise or institution shall strive for a settlement with the reasonable demands made by the staff and workers. The trade union shall strive hard in its task to assist the enterprise or institution to restore the normal order of production as soon as possible.

There are four observations we may make concerning this revised clause:

(i) The use of the phrase “reasonable demands” restricts the ability (and hence the right) of workers’ to engage in industrial action, including strikes. The definition of what may constitute a “reasonable” demand is subject to the arbitrary judgement of local authorities. This adds to the uncertainty faced by workers, while at the same time the ambiguity surrounding what constitutes “reasonable” demands enables the employer to refuse negotiations. A more serious consequence is that if demands are deemed “unreasonable” by authorities, workers may face repression.

(ii) Article 27 offers no protection or legal guarantees to workers engaged in industrial action, including work-stoppages, go-slows and strikes. The fact is that workers arrested for organizing and leading strikes or forming independent trade unions in the past have not been dealt with under existing labour and trade union laws, but have been persecuted under criminal laws. If this is the case, then we must ask how revisions to the Trade Union Law makes any difference to workers’ perceptions of how free they are to organize unions and/or engage in strike action.

(iii) The emphasis in this section of the law is on the requirement that trade unions work to restore production as soon as possible. (This legal obligation was also stated in the 1992 version of the law). In other words, the law stipulates that while the trade union represents workers’ opinions and demands, it must do so with a view to resolving the dispute quickly and getting workers back to work. This conditionality reflects the position taken by members of the NPC Standing Committee during discussions of the Trade Union Law revisions, when it was asserted that “… trade unions also play a role in persuading and directing workers to help continue production.” (China Daily, October 25, 2001).

(iv) The term “strike” does not appear in the law. As in Article 25 in the 1992 version of the law, Article 27 in the new law does not employ the term “strike” (罢工 , bagong). Rather, it refers to instances of “work-stoppage” (停工, tinggong) and “go-slows”(怠工, daigong). The latter term, daigong is also translated as “slowdown” or “work-to-rule”. In some cases (such as the English text of the 1992 Trade Union Law posted on the ACFTU website) the term daigong is translated as “slowdown strike.” However, this is misleading. The term for strike is bagong, and though it is used in press reports on the new Trade Union Law (such as the report in Ming Pao), it does not appear in the law itself.