In February, the China Study Group Europe held a workshop in Vienna (Austria):
Zur Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in China (“The condition of the working class in China”; Vienna University). Among the speakers were Theodor Bergmann (Stuttgart), Can Cui (崔粲, Hamburg), Hermann Dworczak (Vienna), Daniel Fuchs (Vienna), Rolf Geffken (Hamburg), Thomas Immervoll (Vienna), Heiko Khoo (London) and Felix Wemheuer (Vienna). The workshop was organised by the China Study Group Europe, with support of the Marx-Engels-Stiftung (Wuppertal, Germany), transform!europe and transform!at.

Videos of some of the talks now available on YouTube:

Thomas Immervoll: Die Fragmentierung der Arbeiter_innenklasse in China – Zur Entwicklung des Arbeitsmarktes und des informellen Sektors (“The fragmentation of the working class in China – on the development of the labour market and the informal sector”, in German)

Can Cui: WanderarbeiterInnen der zweiten Generation (“Second-generation migrant workers”, in German)

Hermann Dworczak: Chinesische ArbeiterInnenklasse und Weltproletariat (“The Chinese working class and the world proletariat”, in German)

Rolf Geffken: Neue Arbeits- und Sozialgesetze – emanzipatorisches Potenzial? (“New labour and welfare laws – potential for emancipation?”, in German)

Felix Wemheuer: Die Dynamik der Protestbewegungen 1956/1957, 1967/1968 und 1989 (“The dynamics of the protest movements 1956–7, 1967–8, and 1989”, in German)

Heiko Khoo: The working class and the contradictory character of the state (in English)

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The China Study Group Europe has been meeting regularly in Vienna since the conference on Workers’ Struggles from East to West: New Perspectives on Labour Disputes in Globalised China (Vienna, September 2011), sometimes with participation via videolink from Germany, Britain and China. For regular updates on our debates and meetings, subscribe to our mailing list (mostly in German so far) by sending an e-mail to [email protected], or join our Facebook group.