1 Seeking Solutions: How Local Governments Handle Collective Labour Disputes * Xuehui Yang & Feng Chen Introduction In recent decades, China has transformed itself from a centrally planned economy to an emerging market economy. One distinctive feature of this transformation is a huge floating population of off-farm migrants, who are largely employed in the country’s labour-intensive, export-oriented manufacturing industry, leading to the nationwide proliferation of urban industrial centres of production since the 1990s. They also provide the labour forces necessary for the explosion of urban construction and other jobs considered as being “dirty, heavy, dangerous, and low-paying” by urban residents. Despite their significant contribution to the country’s economic growth and urban development, many migrant workers suffer from various kinds of rights abuses, due to institutional discrimination against them, inadequate law enforcement, and the absence of trade unions. In recent years, this has resulted in a dramatic increase in labour unrest, driven by workers’ rising expectations of labour protection. The Chinese government has promoted both institutional and non-institutional arrangements to handle collective labour disputes. This article attempts to examine the different patterns of collective labour dispute resolution, as well as their institutional roots and mechanisms in the context of China’s rapid urbanisation. It argues that, although the Chinese government has established a formal dispute resolution system and actively promotes collective consultations, the mobilisation of migrant workers has outpaced these institutions’ ability to manage it; hence, local governments have to take a more interventionist stance in dispute resolution. This hands-on approach mainly involves two mechanisms: repression and mediation. These both involve a variety of specific tactics, such as intra-government coordination, intimidating activists, and buying off disputants whenever possible, for the sake of quick resolutions. Collective bargaining between employers and workers is also allowed, when workers’ collective power is strong or local governments find no better alternatives. The findings of this study are based on an analysis of 20 cases of collective labour disputes, which were mainly collected from the authors’ fieldwork during from 2013 to 2016 in Guangdong Province. Well known for its fast development of labour-intensive manufacturing industry since the market reform, Guangdong has the largest population of migrant workers and has seen the greatest number of strikes and labour protests in China, which provides us with abundant data sources. During the fieldwork, two-month participant observations in labour NGOs and interviews with workers, NGO activists, and trade union cadres were conducted. Some secondary data are also used, including those from government documents, NGO materials, microblogs, and media reports. Rising Labour Unrest in the Context of Urbanisation in China Rapid urbanisation, along with industrialisation, has propelled social and economic development in China, but has also created various social problems that threaten social stability and the sustainability of urbanisation, such as the failure of the government to integrate new migrants into urban society and provide adequate labour protection for them. The recent report of the