Mediating to Harmony: A panel data analysis on arbitral mediation and collective labor disputes, 1999--2011

20世纪80年代以来的经济转型和劳动制度改革带来了大量的工人集体抗争。但是这些抗争的规模和激烈程度却一直受到有效控制,并且逐渐呈现出个体化的演变趋势。尤其是进入21世纪以来,劳动仲裁受理的集体性劳动争议在人数规模和发生频率上逐渐缩减。那么,究竟是什么因素缓解了劳动仲裁救济渠道内的集体性劳动争议?本文通过对1999-2011年省际面板数据进行计量分析发现,国家在转型期一直积极地强化各种劳动争议调解机制以吸纳和消解工人的集体抗争,劳动仲裁机构强大的调解能力显著降低了其受理的集体性劳动争议的人数规模,却没有减少其发生频率。其原因在于仲裁调解具有高度的选择性,体现为对大规模集体争议的重点防范和对小规模集体争议或个体争议的相对忽略。这些发现在理论上回应了为何转型期中国没有发生大规模工人运动的讨论,在概念上突出了国家以柔性策略疏导工人抗争的调解者角色,在经验上讨论了为何转型期劳动争议绝对数量居高不下且常常是“调而不解”。

The economic transformation and labor institutional reform since the 1980s have brought about a huge mass of labor protests. However, the scale and intensity of the protests have been effectively managed by the Chinese state. Particularly since 2000, the tendency of individualization in labor dispute arbitration channel has been increasingly clear, with both the average number of labors involved in collective disputes and the percentage of collective cases substantially decreased. What are the factors contributing to the decrease of collective labor disputes in the arbitration channel? Employing a panel data analysis, the author finds that the Chinese state has been sparing no effort to strengthen its institutional role and substantial power as mediator in labor conflicts, and has been mobilizing all kinds of agencies to split up the collective labor disputes in the name of mediation. The strong mediative capacity of labor arbitration agencies significantly reduced the scale of collective labor disputes, but failed to alleviate the intensity. This is because that the arbitral mediation is highly selective, with large-scale collective disputes preferentially targeted and small-scale and individual ones relatively ignored.

2012年国家社会科学基金重大招标项目(12&ZD040)；教育部人文社会科学研究基地重大招标项目“建构‘社会中国’:中国社会政策模式研究”(项目号:11JJD840018)；中山大学985三期专项资金；广东省教育厅重大攻关项目“基于社会管理创新的广东和谐社区研究”的支持

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