Paper short abstract:

This article brings new evidence on labour regimes among Chinese firms in Africa and their particularities. We explore the drivers and implications for workers conditions and precarity of dormitory labour regimes in Chinese firms in the construction and manufacturing sectors in Angola.

Paper long abstract:

This article brings new evidence on labour regimes among Chinese firms in Africa and their particularities. During research in Angola and a survey of 680 construction and manufacturing workers, we observed that a significant number of Chinese firms in the construction industry incorporated a dormitory labour regime (DLR), somewhat reminiscent of the DLR found in parts of China, both in construction and manufacturing. While having workers live in work compounds is not unusual in construction projects, especially road building, it is highly unusual to find workers housed and fed by employers in Luanda’s manufacturing sector. The contrast between Chinese and non-Chinese firms in this respect is clear. We explore both the drivers of this practice and the outcomes in terms of workers’ characteristics and working conditions. We found that Chinese firms did not simply ‘import’ labour practices, but were trying to adapt and address labour management problems they faced in Luanda’s context. They also internalized practices and discourses reminiscent of Angola’s colonial labour regimes. While some might see a certain kind of precarity in this labour regime, migrant workers in Chinese DLRs in Angola used the ‘social wage’ embedded in food and accommodation provision to save from cash wages and send remittances back to their areas of origin in some of the poorest parts of Angola. Given Luanda’s serious housing challenges, this regime may have contributed to less rather than more precarity for migrant workers otherwise stuck in informal settlements and with limited opportunities for stable sources of income.