Labor, Logistics and Technology: Informal Employment in China’s Parcel-Delivery Sector

Description

JENNY CHAN (presenter)
“Labor, Logistics and Technology: Informal Employment in China’s Parcel-Delivery Sector,” Interdisciplinary Forum on Social Sciences and Digital Turn—Gender and Migration under Digital Turn. Department of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Beijing Normal University–Hong Kong Baptist University (BNU-HKBU) United International College, Zhuhai City, China, online (and face-to-face format), 24 May.
ABSTRACT
Alibaba—not unlike Amazon—relies on subcontracted companies to deliver orders to consumers. This paper analyzes labor informality in China’s platform economy. Drawing on fieldwork and documentary analysis, the author discusses how individual and family lives are impacted by the hectic world of logistics work, and indeed, how companies have increased cost competitiveness through driving exploitation into forms hidden within the household. Chinese migrant family members frequently assist each other by calling customers and wrapping parcels while their unpaid labor is subsidizing the company’s business operations. Although the spheres of production and social reproduction can sometimes be integrated in cities, migrant informal workers are doubly trapped in non-standard employment relations and in an unequal citizenship regime segmented by rural/urban household registration status. Recently the central government has initiated a coordinated plan involving eight ministries (including the All-China Federation of Trade Unions) to protect couriers’ rights and interests, notably occupational health and safety under the COVID-19 pandemic. But the actual impact of this renewed attention on Chinese labor is to be carefully assessed in digital capitalism.

Period	24 May 2023
Held at	Beijing Normal University–Hong Kong Baptist University (BNU-HKBU) United International College, China
Degree of Recognition	International