As the supply of female factory-workers dwindles, blue-collar women gain clout
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Han Dongfang talks to a Shenzhen factory worker about why workers campaigned to remove the trade union chairman they had democratically elected just nine months earlier. Photograph by LJ.
More than half the strikes and worker protests recorded by CLB last month occurred in the service sector, with protests by transport workers being particularly prevalent. A total of 45 protests were recorded on CLB’s strike map in April, about the same level as in March. There were 27 incidents in the service sector and 17 of those were in transport. Photograph of worker protest outside Yamada store in Jiangsu.
A government-created trade union is being touted as the solution to the long list of grievances routinely voiced by taxi drivers across China. But for taxi driver trade unions to be really effective, the authorities will have to embrace the idea that the job of the trade union is to empower rather than control its members. Photograph by Boris van Hoytema available at flickr.com under a creative commons license.
Jennifer Cheung attends an arbitration hearing held in Guangzhou on the sacking of five employees at the Fortune 500 company International Paper after they staged a work to rule in protest at the company’s bonus offer. Photo of sacked workers with their lawyer Duan Yi outside the arbitration court.
Despite a sharp drop in inflation last month, workers’ demands for higher pay were still the biggest single cause of the 50 strikes and protests recorded on CLB’s strike map in March. Photograph by W PeacePlusOne available at flickr.com under a creative commons licence.
Geoffrey Crothall says the HIT port workers' strike can be resolved, if the company is willing to negotiate with the dockers' union representatives on behalf of its contractors
The suicide nets are still there. Foxconn, the giant electronics manufacturing subcontractor, installed them in 2010, a year when fourteen workers died after jumping from the ledges and windows of crowded dormitories. In addition to the wide mesh nets, stretched low over the streets of Foxconn’s company towns, the corporation has twenty-four-hour “care centers,” “no suicide agreements,” and a psychological test to screen out potentially suicidal workers, charged to the job applicant. It has raised wages significantly, but only in the face of runaway inflation, steep hikes in the minimum wage, and mounting worker unrest. Media attention and pressure from Apple, one of its main customers, backed up by a program of regular factory audits, seem to be driving incremental improvements in working conditions.
The Hong Kong dock strike is making people in the shipping industry here nervous. The headline in today’s South China Morning Post proclaimed “Strike a threat to port’s status, industry says.” Photograph of strikers inside the terminal on 1 April.
He Junling, who was sentenced to seven weeks in jail by a Singapore court last month for inciting Chinese bus drivers to go on strike for higher pay and better living conditions, was deported back to China on 31 March.
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