ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the mobile migrant workers who are unwilling – because of the cost of obtaining permits – or unable – because they do not have urban employers – to obtain legal papers for their work in the cities. The emergence of guerrilla workers is part of the trend of increasing diversity in China’s urban labor force and industrial relations during reform. Although the term dagong is commonly used for private-sector employment of all kinds, not just informal work, workers in the formal private companies often want or have legal and contractual protection, whereas informal workers fall outside state regulations. Guerrilla workers belong to this last category of irregular and unaffiliated workers. Migration researchers everywhere acknowledge the importance of kinship networks and native-place ties in the migration process. The productive units in China’s formal economy have traditionally been organized hierarchically, with large state-owned enterprises at the top and private or individual firms at the bottom.
