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This article examines how management-labor relations and labor legislation have evolved in China since Deng Xiaoping's “Open Door” reforms were introduced in 1979 and how they have changed over the two decades since then. We reconsider the role of Chinese trade unions, enterprises and the state agencies involved, as they move from an employment system that was once called the “iron rice bowl” to a new one based on market forces. This change raises serious dilemmas and issues: are there contradictions between preserving workers' rights and at the same time, enhancing productivity? Does such a transition constitute the onset of “collective bargaining” and a labor-market in the Western sense? How are such shifts likely to be affected by China's entry into the WTO in late 2001? These and other related questions are analysed in the article.

This article traces the evolution of Hong Kong’s labour administration since the Second World War. Given the British “voluntaristic” tradition in approaching labour law and industrial relations, the Hong Kong government has historically been less than interventionist in labour sector activities. In recent years, the government has adopted increasingly interventionist policy measures in such areas as manpower training and wage regulation. These are, however, fragmentary, sporadic, and retroactive in nature. Although a tripartite machinery for labour policy consultation and formulation has already been in existence in Hong Kong, it is nonetheless sustained feebly in a docile fashion under the auspices of the Labour Advisory Board. There is hence a case for this system of “tripartitism” to be revitalised and upgraded in order that labour administration can become a more creditable and integrated aspect of the government’s long-term agenda on public and economic policies. The need for such a policy strategy l...

Since the economic reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping since 1978, China has been gradually introducing greater flexibility into its factormarkets. Previously, under the pre-reform employment system, for example, workers were assigned to enterprises by state labour bureaus. Now, a nascent labour market is evolving (Ng, 1995; Warner, 1995; Ng and Warner, 1998). China’s industrial relations were once only weakly comparable to those in other countries, such as in Western economies or those in Asia. Today, its labour-management relations and management of human resources are increasingly subject to outside influences (see Warner, 2000, in press).

Historical development and economic and social setting institutional framework freedom of association and workers' and empoloyers' organizations collective bargaining and industrial conflict workplace industrial relations working conditions and wages women and young workers, subcontract labour and homeworkers and "social wages" foreign investment and some current industrial relations issues. Appendices: wage negotiation in Hong Kong international labour conventions on which a declaration has been made for Hong Kong by the government of the United Kingdom.