Chinese workers are now launching too many strikes and protests for authorities to suppress, according to a union dissident visiting Australia.
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One of China's best known labour rights activists is in Australia to address the annual meeting of the Australian Workers' Union.
A few years ago, the multinational tech manufacturer Foxconn, a brand previously vaunted as a symbol of China’s 21st century industrial ascent, was marred by the image of miserable young factory workers flinging themselves off the tops of buildings. So the company rolled into damage control mode with typical efficiency:
The firm has agreed to implement a more inclusive union program in China, which a Hong Kong labor group said though laudable was just an initial step.
Manufacturing giant Foxconn, which that makes the iPhone, iPad and other Apple products in China, plans to offer its workforce greater representation in trade unions.
When Shenzhen Walmart employee Li Wan attended a collective bargaining training seminar in neighbouring Hong Kong in the summer of 2011, she hoped the experience would help in her fight to improve pay and working conditions at the store. Front page photograph of Walmart store in Bao'an, Shenzhen by dcmaster available at flickr.com under a creative commons license.
After two months dominated by wage arrears cases, worker protests in China are featuring demands for higher pay again as the economy begins to improve and the cost of living increases. China Labour Bulletin recorded 45 collective protests on our strike map in December, including 16 wage arrears protests and nine demands for pay increases. Photo of strike at Shenzhen toy factory from Weibo..
China is full of big bets that the country’s breakneck economic growth will continue apace, but few are bigger than the vast Yujiapu financial district here.
Geoff Crothall reports on the remarkable success of workers’ movements in China
In the journal Collective Baragining Reasearch, Wang Jiangsong discusses what the democratic election of trade union officials in Shnezhen means for China and how best to capitalise on its success.
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