Challenge of Transition

TIM PRINGLE has been researching labour relations in Asia since 1996 with particular attention to China. He has lived in China and Hong Kong for twelve years during which time he collaborated with colleagues and comrades from the academic, activist and trade union communities.   SIMON CLARKE is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick, UK. Since 1990 he has been researching labour and trade unions in the former state socialist countries, in collaboration with colleagues in those countries and with national and international trade union and labour organizations.

'This is a unique and valuable contribution to research on post communist reform of labour, which combines comparative analysis at a grassroots level with the broader reform initiatives. The result is both an optimistic and realistic assessment of the impediments to further reform, identifying the key force for change, labour itself.' - Bill Taylor, Fulbright Senior Fellow, Cornell University and Asia Programs Fellow, Harvard University, USA, and Associate Professor, City University of Hong Kong 'This is vital reading for students of comparative employment relations, and anyone interested in the future of the labour movement.' - Sarah Ashwin, Professor of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science, UK 'Tim Pringle and Simon Clarke offer the clearest picture yet of the ways in which trade unions in Russia, China, and Vietnam are struggling to respond to transformed employment relations and worker activism, as well as the obstacles to and possibilities for meaningful trade union reform.' - Martin Hart-Lansberg, Professor of Economics, Director of the Political Economy Program, Lewis and Clark College, USA 'A major achievement: essential to understand the prospects of those nearly one billion workers that have entered the global labour market after the demise of state socialism.' - Guglielmo Meardi, Associate Professor of Industrial Relations, Warwick Business School, UK

• List of Figures and Tables List of Acronyms and Abbreviations Introduction State-Socialist Trade Unions in the Transition to a 'Socialist Market Economy' The Challenge of Worker Activism Traditional Trade Unions Adapting to New Conditions The Limits and Possibilities of Trade Unions in Transition Labour Activism and the Reform of Trade Unions References Index