Endurance, identity, and temporality: the ethnic labor market and labor process of Chinese migrant workers in France

Abstract

Workers in France enjoy strong legal protections of their rights, and they have developed organizational support through unions. However, Chinese immigrant workers suffer from adverse working conditions and extreme labor precariousness. Paradoxically, they rarely turn to legal institutions for help. Nor do they organize themselves in unions. Instead, they choose to endure their exploitation. Based on an ethnographic study of Chinese immigrant workers in a Paris suburb, this paper investigates different factors that may influence their preference for resistance strategies. This paper begins with an analysis of the typology of exploitation and later proposes two possible explanations for Chinese immigrant workers’ preferences. Finally, it explores the formation of migrant worker subjectivity.