Strike and changing workplace relations in a Chinese global factory

This article engages with the debate around global capitalism and labour politics in the context of China. Data were drawn from fieldwork on a Taiwanese‐invested factory, where a strike was staged in 2004 spreading from one department to the whole factory. After it ended, the protest encouraged further struggles in the factory and inspired workers in other factories. While the original‐place‐based networks and their attached gangsters had previously divided and pacified workers, the function of place‐based networks and gangsters were dramatically changed in favour of the workers' interests during the strike. The author further argues that the expansion of capitalism in China has raised the marketplace and workplace power of workers but their associational power is impeded by the state socialist legacy.