China-Africa Encounter and Worker Resistance: A Case Study of Wildcat Strikes Against a Chinese-Owned Company in Ethiopia

ABSTRACT

This article examines labor conflicts and worker resistance in the context of Chinese capital in Africa through a case study of large-scale wildcat strikes staged by local workers against the Huanan Group, a Chinese-owned manufacturing firm in Ethiopia. Beginning in January 2019, these strikes lasted for over four months and were unprecedented in terms of both the scale and duration. The authors argue that the wildcat strikes grew out of workers’ discontent caused by the company’s semi-militarized despotic labor regime, which was characterized by low wages, intense labor process, and militarized management style. The discontent among workers failed to materialize into effective forms of protest in previous years because the national institutions granted sufficient support for the labor regime and suppressed workers’ agency. However, changes in Ethiopia’s political environment from the mid-2010s led to the strengthening of worker power and the deterioration of state-business relations, which destabilized the status of the labor regime and provided the capacity for wildcat strikes to develop.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all the interviewees for generously sharing their insights and experiences. They are also grateful to Dr. Lefeng Lin and the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback on the earlier drafts of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

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²¹ Fei, ‘Variegated work regimes of Chinese investment in Ethiopia’; Fei, Samatar and Liao, ‘Chinese-African encounters in high-tech sectors: Comparative investigation of Chinese workplace regimes in Ethiopia’; Ding Fei, ‘The compound labor regime of Chinese construction projects in Ethiopia’, Geoforum 177, (2020), 13–23.

²² Wethal, ‘Workplace regimes in Sino-Mozambican construction projects: resentment and tension in a divided workplace’.

²³ But see Ching Kwan Lee, ‘Raw encounters: Chinese managers, African workers and the politics of casualization in Africa’s Chinese enclaves’ The China Quarterly 199, (2009), 647–666; Oya and Schaefer, ‘The Politics of Labour Relations and Agency in Global Production Networks: Collective action, industrial parks, and local conflict in the Ethiopian apparel sector’.

²⁴ Pseudonym.

²⁵ Ibid.

²⁶ Ibid.

²⁷ See chapter 3 section 3 article 39(b) in the Labour Proclamation No.1156/2019. (https://www.mtalawoffice.com/images/upload/Labour-Proclamation-No_-1156–2019.pdf).

²⁸ Pseudonym.

²⁹ Yuhua Guo et al., ‘Contemporary Struggles of Migrant Workers and the Transition of China’s Labor-capital Relations (in Chinese)’, Ershiyi Shiji Pinglun (twenty-first Century Review) 4, (2011), 4–14.

³⁰ Arkebe Oqubay, Made in Africa industrial policy in Ethiopia (Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press 2015).

³¹ Christopher Clapham, ‘The Ethiopian developmental state’, Third World Quarterly 39(6), (2018), 1151–1165.

³² Daniel Mains and Robel Mulat, ‘The Ethiopian developmental state and struggles over the reproduction of young migrant women’s labor at the Hawassa Industrial Park’, Journal of Eastern African Studies 15(3), (2021), 359–377.

³³ Samuel A. Admasie, ‘Amid political recalibrations: Strike wave hits Ethiopia’, Labor and Society 21, (2018), 431–435.

³⁴ Hardy and Hauge, ‘Labour challenges in Ethiopia’s textile and leather industries: no voice, no loyalty, no exit?’.

³⁵ Mains and Mulat, ‘The Ethiopian developmental state and struggles over the reproduction of young migrant women’s labor at the Hawassa Industrial Park’.

³⁶ Ephrem Fissha, ‘The Role of labor union in protecting employees’ interest: the case of commercial bank of Ethiopia’ (Master’s thesis, St. Mary’s University, Addis Ababa 2019).

³⁷ International Labour Organization, ‘Trade union density rate (%)’ <https://ilostat.ilo.org/topics/union-membership/&gt; accessed 26 September 2021.

³⁸ Oya and Schaefer, ‘Chinese firms and employment dynamics in Africa: A comparative analysis’.

³⁹ Carlos Oya and Florian Schaefer, ‘The politics of labour relations in global production networks: Collective action, industrial parks, and local conflict in the Ethiopian apparel sector’, World Development 146, (2021), 1–13.

⁴⁰ Camille L. Pellerin, ‘The Politics of Public Silence—Civil Society—State Relations under the EPRDF Regime’ (PhD thesis, London School of Economics and Political Science 2018).

⁴¹ Hardy and Hauge, ‘Labour challenges in Ethiopia’s textile and leather industries: no voice, no loyalty, no exit?’.

⁴² Pellerin, ‘The Politics of Public Silence—Civil Society—State Relations under the EPRDF Regime’.

⁴³ Admasie, ‘Amid political recalibrations: Strike wave hits Ethiopia’, 434.

⁴⁴ Interview with a Chinese manager, Addis Ababa, 3 March 2019.

⁴⁵ Ibid, various dates.

⁴⁶ Linda Calabrese, ‘Chinese firms and employment dynamics in Angola and Ethiopia’ (Growth Research Project 2020).

⁴⁷ The average exchange rate in 2019 is used: one US dollar equals 29.21 Ethiopian birrs.

⁴⁸ Interview with an Ethiopian worker, Addis Ababa, 16 April 2019.

⁴⁹ Interview with an Ethiopian translator, Addis Ababa, 18 April 2019.

⁵⁰ Interview with a Chinese manager, Addis Ababa, 17 March 2019.

⁵¹ Andrea Ghione, ‘The political economy of industrial policies in Ethiopia: structural change, policy process and the role of donors’ (PhD thesis, University of Parma 2021).

⁵² Bekalu Atnafu Taye, ‘Ethnic federalism and conflict in Ethiopia’, African Journal on Conflict Resolution 17(2), (2017), 41–66; Semir Yusuf, ‘Drivers of ethnic conflict in contemporary Ethiopia’ (Institute for Security Studies 2019) https://issafrica.org/research/monographs/drivers-of-ethnic-conflict-in-contemporary-ethiopia.

⁵³ Husen A. Tura, ‘Land rights and land grabbing in Oromia, Ethiopia’, Land Use Policy 70, (2017), 247–255.

⁵⁴ Ghione, ‘The political economy of industrial policies in Ethiopia: structural change, policy process and the role of donors’.

⁵⁵ Wondwosen Teshome-Bahiru, ‘Civil Society and Democratization in Africa: The Role of the Civil Society in the 2005 Election in Ethiopia’, International Journal of Social Sciences 4(2), (2019), 80–95; Jalale Getachew Birru and Jonas Wolff, ‘Negotiating international civil society support: the case of Ethiopia’s 2009 Charities and Societies Proclamation’, Democratization 26(5), (2019), 832–850.

⁵⁶ See <https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/16000/afr250072012en.pdf.&gt; Accessed 6 January 2021.

⁵⁷ Rachel Baranowski and Brett Sidelinger, ‘Despite Challenges, Ethiopia’s Civil Society Remains Committed to Democracy’, <https://www.democracyspeaks.org/blog/amid-challenges-ethiopias-civil-society-spearheads-democratic-progress.&gt; Accessed 6 January 2021.

⁵⁸ Admasie, ‘Amid political recalibrations: Strike wave hits Ethiopia’.

⁵⁹ Ibid.

⁶⁰ Oya and Schaefer, ‘The Politics of Labour Relations and Agency in Global Production Networks: Collective action, industrial parks, and local conflict in the Ethiopian apparel sector’.

⁶¹ Just-style, ‘Workers strike at Ethiopia’s Hawassa Industrial Park’, https://www.just-style.com/news/workers-strike-at-ethiopias-hawassa-industrial-park/. Accessed 6 January 2021.

⁶² Interview with a Chinese manager, Addis Ababa, 10 April 2019.

⁶³ Hyun Woo Kim, ‘Work environments and workers’ grievances: Accounting for variation in wildcat strikes in the US coal mining industry, 1970–1977’, Economic and Industrial Democracy 40(4), (2019), 1039–1056.

⁶⁴ This nickname was given by Chinese managers to a salient leader of the strike for his respected status among workers.

⁶⁵ Interview with an Ethiopian worker, Addis Ababa, 8 April 2019.

⁶⁶ Ibid.

⁶⁷ Interview with a Chinese supervisor, Addis Ababa, 7 April 2019.

⁶⁸ Interview with a Chinese manager, Addis Ababa, 10 April 2019.

⁶⁹ Interview with an Ethiopian worker, Addis Ababa, 14 April 2019.

⁷⁰ Weiwei Chen, ‘The dynamics of state-business relations between the Ethiopian state and Chinese private firms: A case study of the Eastern Industrial Park’, No. 2021/122. WIDER Working Paper, (2021).

⁷¹ Oya and Schaefer, ‘The politics of labour relations in global production networks: Collective action, industrial parks, and local conflict in the Ethiopian apparel sector’, 9.

⁷² Interview with a Chinese manager, Addis Ababa, 24 April 2019.

⁷³ Ibid, 10 April 2019.

⁷⁴ Ibid, 5 May 2019.

⁷⁵ Oya and Schaefer, ‘The politics of labour relations in global production networks: Collective action, industrial parks, and local conflict in the Ethiopian apparel sector’.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of Education Key Projects of Philosophy and Social Sciences Research under Grant (17JZD019).