Labour politics in China’s platform economy: Contending discourses in trade union building under party-state hegemony

This study centres on the role of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) in shaping labour politics in China’s platform economy. More specifically, a Gramscian framework is developed to understand trade union building not simply as an ideological project, but as a set of materially embedded practices marked by tension, negotiation, and a shared yet unstable ‘language of contention’. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Zhengzhou and Xiamen, the article explores how a language of care arises and is practised differently across local contexts, shaped by distinct political-economic conditions. In doing so, it argues that union building in the platform economy should be understood not as a unified top–down initiative, but as a contested terrain where institutional strategies and grassroots agency are embedded in local distinct political economies. Among the first to explore the role of the ACFTU in China’s platform economy, this study encourages future studies on struggles and ruptures in the field of labour and trade union studies in China.