Advocating Workers' Collective Rights: The Prospects and Constraints Facing ‘Collective Bargaining’ NGOs in the Pearl River Delta, 2011–2015

Labour struggles are frequent in China, but because workers’ organizational resources are controlled by the state, these struggles have been fragmented. Targeting this problem, a group of internationally connected labour NGOs emerged in the Pearl River Delta between 2011 and 2015. These organizations sought to advocate workers’ collective rights by helping workers organize outside the state system. Adopting a relational approach to the study of civil society, this article examines the impact of these NGOs. Based on ethnographic research and a unique data set, it argues that although the organizational skills shared by these NGOs could to some extent sustain workers’ collective actions, they could not be used to integrate the fragmented struggles. Due to the lack of institutional guarantees, activists’ interventions can generate more mistrust than solidarity. The preference of the key donor for a more confrontational and independent labour movement further widened the gap between NGOs and workers, and distracted the NGOs from channels that had the potential to influence policy. The study contributes to an understanding of social movements and NGO intervention by emphasizing the necessity of locating advocacy channels within the state, and the importance of recognizing and maintaining the complex ecology of civil society.