"China on Strike" book talks, San Francisco Bay Area, 6-7 April 2016
China on Strike is the first English-language book that provides an intimate and revealing window into the lives of workers organizing in China’s most profitable factories -- supplying Apple, Nike, Hewlett Packard, and other multinationals. This book has dozens of interviews with Chinese workers, documenting the processes of migration, changing employment relations, worker culture, and other transformations related to China’s explosive growth.
Cultural revolution at the margins: Chinese socialism in crisis
Yiching Wu's pathbreaking 2014 book, providing key insights into the contradictions of Mao-era socialism, "ultra-left" efforts to supersede them, and how the Maoist-initiated mass movements and then suppression thereof in the late 1960s laid the foundations for the consolidation of a new ruling class and China's integration into global capitalism. One of the most important books on PRC history from a Marxist perspective.
Slandering of the workers' movement will not be permitted
December 3, 2015, over 20 Guangzhou and Foshan labor activists were apprehended by police, launching a crackdown that has as of the latest updates put 4 activists under arrest and closed down several prominent labor organizations in the Pearl River Delta. This piece by labor activist 工弩 is one of the first critiques the limits of the labor movement response thus far to the crackdown and demands a more thoughtful, organized response by worker activists, beginning with the voicing of a clear labor movement position in the current fight.
4 of the Guangdong labor activists formally charged, 2 released - day 37
Today (Jan 8 2016) is the 37th day of the criminal detention of Guangzhou-Foshan labor activists Zeng Feiyang, Zhu Xiaomei, He Xiaobo, Deng Xiaoming, Meng Han and Peng Jiayong. According to law, this is the maximum permissible length of criminal detention. Tang Jian, who was not criminally detained, has also been out of contact for 37 days.
[Newest updates on the Dec 3 Guangzhou-Foshan labor arrests incident] Activsts Under Arrest
Today (Jan 8 2016) is the 37th day of the criminal detention of Guangzhou-Foshan labor activists Zeng Feiyang, Zhu Xiaomei, He Xiaobo, Deng Xiaoming, Meng Han and Peng Jiayong. According to law, this is the maximum permissible length of criminal detention. Tang Jian, who was not criminally detained, has also been out of contact for 37 days.
American caught up in China's crackdown on labor activists
The Guangdong Six and the rule of law (of value): Preliminary theses on the December 3 crackdown
Comrades have been asking questions such as, 'why should we focus on supporting “reformist NGO staff” when workers and peasants are regularly arrested, beaten and sometimes killed for participation in forms of resistance more likely to improve their conditions or lead to more transformative movements?' In response to these questions, we wrote the following theses.
Day 13 in Detention: “Mom did nothing wrong, she will be fine, we should just wait for her at home.”
In defense of Zeng Feiyang: a critique of the smear campaign
On Dec. 22, Chinese state media launched a smear campaign against Zeng, one of the seven labor rights activists criminally detained in a sweep of four worker-support organizations and at least 40 affiliated individuals since Deccember 3. The state has yet to confirm Zeng's whereabouts or criminal charges, but he may be charged with "inciting the subversion of state power," which could result in 15 years in prison.