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AbstractThe auto workers' strikes that erupted in southern China in 2010 triggered significant labour relations reforms in Guandong province. Against this background, the author draws on extensive empirical research in leading car assembly plants and their suppliers to construct a typology of their production regimes for analysing current changes in labour relations. While this framework is helpful in understanding the growing diversity of China's manufacturing industries generally, it is used here to conceptualize the fragmentation and segmentation of labour relations between various firms, layers of suppliers and regional clusters in the automotive industry. The article concludes with a discussion of prospects for further reform.

Forced migration studies and research related to the "new wars" paradigm have drawn attention to the modes of operation of war economies and the coercive labour relations involved. Field research findings by the author and an Afghan team in 2015–2017 on employment by local construction companies revealed that remnants of the war economy have persisted in Afghanistan's fragile and violence-affected settings and continue to shape labour relations. To avoid acts of sabotage and fulfil construction contracts, relationships with local powerholders – politicians holding offices in government or Taliban leaders – are crucial for mobile Afghan companies operating on construction sites for limited periods. The research findings indicate that these relationships provide a field of interaction and negotiations about conflict-sensitive employment between company managers and local elders representing community interests – and through them, local powerholders. The involvement of elders affects the labour relations between company managers and local workers, both mobile and immobile.

Forced migration studies and research related to the "new wars" paradigm have drawn attention to the modes of operation of war economies and the coercive labour relations involved. Field research findings by the author and an Afghan team in 2015-2017 on employment by local construction companies revealed that remnants of the war economy have persisted in Afghanistan's fragile and violence-affected settings and continue to shape labour relations. To avoid acts of sabotage and fulfil construction contracts, relationships with local powerholders - politicians holding offices in government or Taliban leaders - are crucial for mobile Afghan companies operating on construction sites for limited periods. The research findings indicate that these relationships provide a field of interaction and negotiations about conflict-sensitive employment between company managers and local elders representing community interests - and through them, local powerholders. The involvement of elders affects the labour relations between company managers and local workers, both mobile and immobile.

Forced migration studies and research related to the "new wars" paradigm have drawn attention to the modes of operation of war economies and the coercive labour relations involved. Field research findings by the author and an Afghan team in 2015-2017 on employment by local construction companies revealed that remnants of the war economy have persisted in Afghanistan's fragile and violence-affected settings and continue to shape labour relations. To avoid acts of sabotage and fulfil construction contracts, relationships with local powerholders - politicians holding offices in government or Taliban leaders - are crucial for mobile Afghan companies operating on construction sites for limited periods. The research findings indicate that these relationships provide a field of interaction and negotiations about conflict-sensitive employment between company managers and local elders representing community interests - and through them, local powerholders. The involvement of elders affects the labour relations between company managers and local workers, both mobile and immobile.

The marketization of municipal services in China's cities from the 1990s triggered a wave of strikes beginning in the 2000s that provided an impetus towards standardization and the re-regulation of employment conditions. On the basis of a study of the sanitation and taxi industries in the cities of Wenzhou and Guangzhou, the authors find that local governments have utilized three strategies in promoting standardization: unionization, public policy implementation and business consolidation. Although outcomes vary across the cases considered, institutionalization remains weak at best and conflicts persist. The article concludes by presenting a schema for comparing the different strategies identified in these cases and those historically institutionalized in the West.

AbstractThe marketization of municipal services in China's cities from the 1990s triggered a wave of strikes beginning in the 2000s that provided an impetus towards standardization and the re‐regulation of employment conditions. On the basis of a study of the sanitation and taxi industries in the cities of Wenzhou and Guangzhou, the authors find that local governments have utilized three strategies in promoting standardization: unionization, public policy implementation and business consolidation. Although outcomes vary across the cases considered, institutionalization remains weak at best and conflicts persist. The article concludes by presenting a schema for comparing the different strategies identified in these cases and those historically institutionalized in the West.