The Condition of the Working Class in Shenzhen

Workers in Shenzhen, China, toil day and night sewing clothes, building iPhones and iPads, constructing skyscrapers and new subway lines, and cleaning hotel rooms for global capitalists negotiating business deals. During a recent visit, Julie Greene explored labor relations in this city of 13 million that has been at the heart of the nation's industrialization miracle. Shenzhen workers are mostly internal migrants from China's countryside—the famed "peasant-workers". Forming a class of nearly 290 million people, they constitute 35 per cent of China's total working population and are central to the success story of Chinese capitalism. What challenges do these peasant-workers face as they build a life for themselves in Shenzhen—particularly at this historical moment when President Xi Jinping has steered his country sharply toward authoritarianism?