The marketization of municipal services in China's cities from the 1990s triggered a wave of strikes beginning in the 2000s that provided an impetus towards standardization and the re-regulation of employment conditions. On the basis of a study of the sanitation and taxi industries in the cities of Wenzhou and Guangzhou, the authors find that local governments have utilized three strategies in promoting standardization: unionization, public policy implementation and business consolidation. Although outcomes vary across the cases considered, institutionalization remains weak at best and conflicts persist. The article concludes by presenting a schema for comparing the different strategies identified in these cases and those historically institutionalized in the West.