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who had participated in a large protest at the Benxi City Government compound in June
2000, said that their claims had been purely subsistence related, that they had used “old
ways of thinking from before reform” to phrase their complaints, and had conscientiously
refrained from directly attacking current policies or political leaders, even though they
held strong opinions that today’s leaders and policies were to blame for their
circumstances.
101
Workers in Shanghai, who have clearly benefited (at least in absolute material
terms) from 25 years of economic reform and who generally have no problems insuring
their basic subsistence, do not make claims about being unable to eat – rather, they often
advance claims regarding school fees (and their inability to pay these rising costs),
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unpaid subsidies, or incidents of flagrant corruption or embezzlement in their firms.
103
While the claims of Northeastern workers are likely to be general, moral economic, and
subsistence-related, those of workers on the Central Coast, and most provincial capitals,
tend to be legalistic, contractual, and related to specific instances of the state’s or their
firm’s failure to deliver promised benefits.
One laid-off fish processing plant worker in Shanghai told the story of how she
was able to handle all the hardships of being sent to the countryside as a youth, of being
laid-off from the plant, and of working long hours in the collective sector supermarket
where her work unit was able to place her after laying her off. She has never been unable
100
Recent scholarship on Russia has highlighted and refined the links between frames, tactics, and claims:
Debra Javeline “The Role of Blame in Collective Action: Evidence from Russia” American Political
Science Review, Volume 97, Number 1 (February 2003) – pp.107-121.
101
Interviews, 42, 43, and 38 year old, male laid-off coal miners, Benxi, November 2000.
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On how much of a problem this has become for laid-off parents: Gu Jinling “Xiagang Zhigong Zinu
Jiaoyu Wenti Yanjiu” (Research on Problems for the Education of Children of Laid-off Workers) Jiaoyu
Kexue, Number 5 (2002).
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Interviews, 38 year old, male, laid-off chemical worker; 37 year old , female, laid-off textile worker,
Shanghai October 2000 and May 2002.
Convention