The development of China's "socialist market economy" has been accompanied by a significant legislative project in order to develop the institutional frameworks necessary for market transactions. The result is pro-market legislation whose development is encouraged by the initiatives of "actors interested in the market." This set of laws also affected workplace relations with the development of rules seeking to establish a contractual agreement between employers and employees. After having examined the emergence of this legal basis for trade, this article envisages the manner in which the workers of one Shanghai enterprise mobilized this law during collective conflicts in 2003 and 2007. This case-study illustrates the impact of the law in the social struggles and reveals a dimension of "institutional learning" by the workers from one conflict to the next.
