| Abstract: | By adopting the “reasonable value” notion applied to the labor relationship as proposed by John R. Commons, I study the way in which labor legislation in China can be understood as the search for a status of employment security for rural migrant workers. However, the Chinese labor market is experiencing growth in a particular form of informal labor: delegated and temporary labor. I analyze this contradiction not as a failure of the legislation itself, but as the product of a particular institutional context which provides a way to skirt the law, and thereby diminish its effectiveness. Finally, in a non-democratic state, labor law — which has been instrumentalized and mobilized within a form of state corporatism — reveals that very significant challenges exist for building a truly secure status for employees. |
