Discrimination

Authorities impose tight controls on Guangzhou strike

A four day strike at a Korean-owned handbag factory in Guangzhou has gone completely unreported in the official Chinese media this week as authorities attempt to prevent a repeat of last summer’s wave of strikes in factories in Guangdong and across China.

SCMP: Cost of living

For more than a century, Chinese have climbed mountains, crossed stormy seas and stowed away in the hope of working overseas. Their dream is a life beyond the poverty of home. But, they are usually exploited by ruthless middlemen and employers. Despite this, the search for a new life continues today, even with the improvements to the lives of tens of millions in China.

RTHK The Pulse: Labour Unrest in Guangzhou

Simmering tensions in labour relations in the mainland are sometimes exacerbated by the tough conditions faced by migrant workers. Now and again, these tensions bubble over into open confrontation, as they did last weekend. The unrest was triggered when a pregnant migrant woman from Sichuan province was asked to remove her hawker’s stall by village security officers on Friday night. Workers accused the villages’ security officers of pushing the pregnant woman to the ground. Those accusations led to a violent conflict between workers and security officers. Hundreds of people, mainly workers from Sichuan workers, flocked to the area. Some hurled bricks and bottles at municipality officers.

News coverage of CLB's report on Chinese workers in Japan

Japan and China should improve conditions for migrant Chinese workers whose rights are frequently abused in low-paid factory jobs in Japan, a report said Tuesday.

Throwaway Labour: The exploitation of Chinese “trainees” in Japan

China is by far the most important supplier of “trainees” to Japan’s exploitative, low-paid labour intensive industries. Photo of Mt Fuji by mick62@flicker.com under a creative commons license.

University graduate sues education department over white blood cell count discrimination

A court in Yiwu, Zhejiang, has agreed to hear China’s first ever lawsuit against an employer for refusing to hire a prospective employee on the grounds of their white blood cell count. The lawsuit, filed by a Ningbo University graduate, accuses the Yiwu municipal education and labour departments of denying him a job as a high school mathematics teacher because his medical examination indicated an abnormally high white blood cell count.

SCMP Letters: Singapore's laws protect foreign workers

In response to an SCMP article on CLB's research report on Chinese migrant workers in Singapore. The Singapore consul general in Hong Kong, Ker Sin Tze, wrote to the newspaper on 24 February.

Singapore Straits Times: Plight of the migrant worker

While China has been the world's factory for some years now , it is also fast becoming a big exporter of cheap labour. By 2009, there were almost 800,000 Chinese workers in more than 190 countries

SCMP: Singapore exploits labourers from China, report says

The 200,000 migrants from China working in Singapore suffer abuse, discrimination and violations of their rights but few can obtain legal redress because they are under the control of their employers, according to a report by the China Labour Bulletin.

The Irrawaddy: Migrants' Stories Shed Light on Singapore's Dark Side

Foreign workers in Singapore—some 200,000 of them Chinese migrants, work long hours for low pay in frequently hazardous conditions and are often abused by employers and labor contractors, according to a new research report published by the China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based NGO.

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