nes, to pay workers more than the minimum wage (CLB, 2007). As with many things, in how far this is enforced, also in presence of wages rates below the minimum level, remains an open question and is likely to vary across the country and sectors., The government has a considerable share of control over agreements involving trade unions as any collective contracts (see below) between unions and management are subject to approval by the MOLSS. But here too, as with minimum wages, the same issues are apparent. Given the sizable influence the government can have on limiting market mechanisms, its influence on the private sector will depend on local government s preferences and abilities, and may be more enforced on a case-to-case basis rather than on a large-scale basis.
3.1.3 Collective Bargaining
It is noteworthy not to confuse collective bargaining with collective contracts, which usually do not include wage negotiations. Quite in contrast to collective contracts, collective bargaining requires courage, skills, and the determination to confront management with fundamental issues of the collective labor force represented by the trade union. There have been limited experimentations with collective bargaining in China, with the majority of collective wage bargaining taking place at the enterprise level, although there are also regional and industry variations. There are MOLSS regulations for the process of collective bargaining, but it remains unclear how this process gets initiated. Therefore, it is no surprise that collective wage bargaining remains highly uncommon in Chinese industrial relations, as trade unions have little bargaining power over management and lack political support. To this day, Western style collective bargaining has been given little priority in the government s determination to increase marketization. We will return to this topic in more detail in section 4.4.
3.2 Marketization Process
the beginning of first economic reforms including continuous downsizing of the state sector accompanied by specific labor market liberalization in the 1990s, the Chinese labor market has become extensively marketized while the government has permitted market forces to control larger shares of the labor market. The changing employment patterns and conditions have become more market oriented, while causing problems to job security, social protection, and wages. It may seem as if the Chinese government has relied on these mechanisms in the immature labor market to solve problems of unemployment during the transition period. Market forces have taken on an important part in developing the labor market and breaking up formally fully institutionalized wage structures (Cai, Wang and Du, 2005). Compared to the past, the Chinese labor market has for su...
