In the two short years since its emergence, Gonglao has become the single most important source of information and analysis about workers and labor strugglesin China. An informal network of young researchers and activists throughout China and inthe diaspora, they have depended on a committed core of volunteers to conduct research.Their website () provides nearly daily updates on labor issues from around thecountry based on information gleaned from the internet. Eli Friedman has a PhD in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley and has beenon the faculty of the Industrial Labor Relations School since 2011. He is also the faculty advisor for the Cornell Labor Action Tracker, which is the only comprehensive database of strike events in the United States. His previous books include The Urbanization of People:The Politics of Development, Labor Markets, and Schooling in the Chinese City (Columbia 2022) and Insurgency Trap: Labor Politics in Postsocialist China (Cornell 2014). He also co-edited the English translation China on Strike: Narratives of Worker Resistance (Haymarket, 2016).
Involution : A Worker Inquiry amid China's Youth Unemployment Wave