An Empirical Study of Workers\u27 Demands Through Industrial Actions: A Comparative Analysis of the United States, Germany and The People\u27s Republic of China Under the Bargaining Model

The Chinese traditional manufacturing industry used to rely on raw materials and low labor costs to achieve a competitive advantage, however, the Chinese lowest–cost labor market is no longer competitive and the Chinese manufacturing industry is not the strongest player in the high-tech area. The transition of manufacturing industry is confronted with difficulties and challenges. From the prior research, one of the reasons over labor conflicts is the awareness of rights consciousness. Employment dispute cases have had a significant increase since 2008, and labor disputes gradually increased since the year 2014. Industrial actions, such as strikes and protests, became the first and the only approach to put pressures on employers to negotiate workers’ demands. As a result, strikes have weakened companies’ profits. Distrust and antagonisms would persist even if strikes were over. China has increased efforts to protect workers and encourage social stability, for example, enhancing the trade union density through a top-down administrative force. As a result, China gained an enormous growth in trade union density and it has had a remarkable growth in the number of collective bargaining contracts. However, the existing Chinese bargaining model and labor laws cannot catch the status quo. Thus, the number of labor disputes has increased every year. The paper uses a qualitative and quantitative analysis to examine the industrial actions in the main land of China. The results of the empirical study provide strong arguments for evaluating the China labor disputes resolution system. In order to lessen industrial actions, the paper uses a comparative analysis over the bargaining models and labor laws in three countries: The United States, Germany, and the People’s Republic of China. The paper concludes with implications and suggestions on establishing the efficient collective bargaining system in China