Two workers were held in police detention for 26 days for allegedly imprisoning their factory manager in a dispute over unpaid pension contributions. They were eventually released on 29 April but the police have refused to say if the workers will be charged or not.

China Labour Bulletin was extensively quoted by major news organizations, including Time and The Guardian, on the riot at a steel plant in Jilin that led to the death of a senior manager.

Two major strikes over the last two weeks have shown that some local governments and managements have still not learnt important lessons from the privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) at the turn of the century. The protests at the state-owned Golden Emperor Group textile plant in Chongqing’s Fuling district on 13 and 14 April, and the former state-owned Yimian textile factory in Baoding, Hebei, in the first week of April erupted for precisely the same reasons as in the majority of SOE privatization disputes a decade ago: wages arrears, inadequate compensation for lay offs and the misappropriation of assets by management.

In a clear sign that the authorities are willing to relax their enforcement of China’s labour laws during the economic crisis, the Guangdong provincial procuratorate has instructed its officers not to arrest or detain factory bosses and other senior staff suspected of white collar crime. However, workers whose protests are deemed to jeopardize factory production will be prosecuted. Photo of strike action by Sebi.