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Honda China strike reveals growing labor discontent
'cheap labor' or 'sweatshop' seems no longer sustainable and increasing wages is a prerequesite for the masses to really benefit from GDP hiking at %% rate and boost domestic consumption as another engine of eco. growth. And widened social gap... workers' rights...
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/261...a-strike-reveals-growing-labor-discontent.htm
A strike called by workers in Honda Motor Co's (TYO.7267) Chinese plants that brought the Japanese auto giant's operations in the mainland to a standstill underscores the growing discontent brewing among the migrant workers in Asia's second largest economy.
Enlarge This Image
Reuters
A group of Honda interim workers and workers hold a strike at the front gate after walking out from their plant manufacturing auto parts in Foshan at the southern Chinese Guangdong province May 31, 2010
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Last week, Honda was forced to shut all four of its Chinese auto assembly plants after nearly 2000 factory workers staged a walkout demanding a wage hike of at least 500 yuan ($74). An average Honda worker in China earns 1000 yuans a month.
Subsequent negotiations failed to bear fruit and despite Honda announcing a 24 percent pay hike, the auto major was forced to keep its joint venture factory Dongfeng Honda Automobile suspended till June 3 and idle its two factories, run by Guangqi Honda Automobile, and a separate export-only factory till Thursday.
Though strikes are technically illegal in China, as the government fears any form of social unrest, market watchers claim that the mainland has been hit in recent times by a string of labor disputes with migrant workers protesting low wages and harsh working conditions.
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According to a study by the International Labor Rights Forum, in the year after China's Labor Contract Law took effect in early 2008, the number of labor disputes doubled and the study has revealed that though the law set standards for labor contracts, use of temporary workers, layoffs and other conditions and has raised workers awareness of their legal rights, many manufacturing companies still brazenly flout the law and often employ people without proper contracts.
And the workers had no choice, claims Arthur Kroeber, managing director at the Dragonomics consultancy in Beijing. "The previous availability of labour in China meant you could de-automate industrial processes and turn cheap workers into machines," Kroeber said. "If workers didn't like it, they knew there were 10 other guys waiting to take their job."
However, now times have changed.
"The migrant workers of this generation are so different from earlier generations," says Li Guorui, a psychology professor at East China Normal University in Shanghai. "Modern migrant workers live in an age where it easy to get information through mobile phones, the media and the Internet. It is easy for them to know the lives of youths of the same age." Today's workers, Li said, "don't want to be a money-making machine."
According to Liu Kaiming, a workers' rights advocate with the Institute for Contemporary Observation in Shenzhen, the new generation of workers "have a better awareness of their rights."
"Today's migrant workers have higher expectations than their parents. They will choose where to work and ask for better salary," Liu said.
However, the "reality has not changed" and the workers "cannot bridge the gap between their dreams and reality."
Other labor experts agree.
According to Hong Kong-based China Labor Bulletin's Geoffrey Crothall, the new generation of migrant workers, who come from remote parts of China to big citie and are mostly in their 20s, have high aspirations but find it difficult to turn them into reality as they are overworked and get poor pay. And, frustrations rise when these workers sometimes "go to glitzy shopping malls and see people their own age driving BMWs and carrying Louis Vuitton handbags," Crothall said.
"These young workers feel like there's no one caring for them," said Li Qiang, executive director of New York-based worker's rights group China Labor Watch.
For example, Li said that after Foxconn was hit by a string of suicides by its workers at its Shenzhen facility in southern China, investigations revealed that workers at the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronic products were underpaid and over-worked.
Labor groups claim Foxconn enforces "military-style administration and harsh working conditions," making its workers, most of whom are in their early 20s with little or no social support, labor for up to 12 hours at a stretch on highly-repetitive, assembly-line tasks without any break and sometimes the workers are forced to work even on weekends.
However, Foxconn is not an exception and most Chinese factories, if not all, ignore workers' personal values for the sake of efficiency and increased productivity.
"In some isolated companies, you will never know what's happening there," Shenzhen-based labor expert Liu said.
Guo Yuhua, a sociology professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, feels companies like Foxconn or Honda are a "microcosm of China's labor system." "The country's prosperity is based on migrant workers' blood and sweat, and the country certainly needs to do something for the laborers," Gou said.
Agrees Jin Bei, head of the industrial research institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. According to Jin, incidents like Foxconn and Honda show "one big problem: people are not machines."
Rising living standards and "individual dignity" mean that companies must find ways to treat workers well even under conditions of intense global competition, Jin wrote in a commentary Monday in the China Business Journal. "Otherwise, such tragedies and crises will be inevitable."
Huang Yiping, an economics professor at Peking University feels China must embrace higher wages to address the labor problem. "After three decades of rapid growth partly driven by cheap labor, China must adjust" to higher wages, Huang said.
Agrees Crothall. "The wages of these workers should be raised to decent levels so they won't feel they need to rely on overtime. That would give them time to socialize, relax and work through whatever issues they have," he said.
Foxconn and Honda said they would increase wages by 20 percent and 24 percent respectively besides announcing a slew of measures meant to boost the morale of their workers.
Shares of Honda, which announced recently that it would increase production in China by 30 percent to make 830,000 vehicles a year and makes the Accord and Civic sedan, Odyssey minivan, Jazz hatchback and CRV SUV in the mainland, closed 0.22 percent down at 2764 yen
'cheap labor' or 'sweatshop' seems no longer sustainable and increasing wages is a prerequesite for the masses to really benefit from GDP hiking at %% rate and boost domestic consumption as another engine of eco. growth. And widened social gap... workers' rights...
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/261...a-strike-reveals-growing-labor-discontent.htm
A strike called by workers in Honda Motor Co's (TYO.7267) Chinese plants that brought the Japanese auto giant's operations in the mainland to a standstill underscores the growing discontent brewing among the migrant workers in Asia's second largest economy.
Enlarge This Image
Reuters
A group of Honda interim workers and workers hold a strike at the front gate after walking out from their plant manufacturing auto parts in Foshan at the southern Chinese Guangdong province May 31, 2010
Related Articles
Bank of China expects delay in rate hikes: report (11:16 pm)
US calls on China to allow the appreciation of Yuan (10:48 pm)
Swan against global bank levy (9:04 pm)
Related Topics
China
Manufacturing
New York
Last week, Honda was forced to shut all four of its Chinese auto assembly plants after nearly 2000 factory workers staged a walkout demanding a wage hike of at least 500 yuan ($74). An average Honda worker in China earns 1000 yuans a month.
Subsequent negotiations failed to bear fruit and despite Honda announcing a 24 percent pay hike, the auto major was forced to keep its joint venture factory Dongfeng Honda Automobile suspended till June 3 and idle its two factories, run by Guangqi Honda Automobile, and a separate export-only factory till Thursday.
Though strikes are technically illegal in China, as the government fears any form of social unrest, market watchers claim that the mainland has been hit in recent times by a string of labor disputes with migrant workers protesting low wages and harsh working conditions.
EMAIL PRINT
TEXT SIZE:
SHARE
RATE:
According to a study by the International Labor Rights Forum, in the year after China's Labor Contract Law took effect in early 2008, the number of labor disputes doubled and the study has revealed that though the law set standards for labor contracts, use of temporary workers, layoffs and other conditions and has raised workers awareness of their legal rights, many manufacturing companies still brazenly flout the law and often employ people without proper contracts.
And the workers had no choice, claims Arthur Kroeber, managing director at the Dragonomics consultancy in Beijing. "The previous availability of labour in China meant you could de-automate industrial processes and turn cheap workers into machines," Kroeber said. "If workers didn't like it, they knew there were 10 other guys waiting to take their job."
However, now times have changed.
"The migrant workers of this generation are so different from earlier generations," says Li Guorui, a psychology professor at East China Normal University in Shanghai. "Modern migrant workers live in an age where it easy to get information through mobile phones, the media and the Internet. It is easy for them to know the lives of youths of the same age." Today's workers, Li said, "don't want to be a money-making machine."
According to Liu Kaiming, a workers' rights advocate with the Institute for Contemporary Observation in Shenzhen, the new generation of workers "have a better awareness of their rights."
"Today's migrant workers have higher expectations than their parents. They will choose where to work and ask for better salary," Liu said.
However, the "reality has not changed" and the workers "cannot bridge the gap between their dreams and reality."
Other labor experts agree.
According to Hong Kong-based China Labor Bulletin's Geoffrey Crothall, the new generation of migrant workers, who come from remote parts of China to big citie and are mostly in their 20s, have high aspirations but find it difficult to turn them into reality as they are overworked and get poor pay. And, frustrations rise when these workers sometimes "go to glitzy shopping malls and see people their own age driving BMWs and carrying Louis Vuitton handbags," Crothall said.
"These young workers feel like there's no one caring for them," said Li Qiang, executive director of New York-based worker's rights group China Labor Watch.
For example, Li said that after Foxconn was hit by a string of suicides by its workers at its Shenzhen facility in southern China, investigations revealed that workers at the world's largest contract manufacturer of electronic products were underpaid and over-worked.
Labor groups claim Foxconn enforces "military-style administration and harsh working conditions," making its workers, most of whom are in their early 20s with little or no social support, labor for up to 12 hours at a stretch on highly-repetitive, assembly-line tasks without any break and sometimes the workers are forced to work even on weekends.
However, Foxconn is not an exception and most Chinese factories, if not all, ignore workers' personal values for the sake of efficiency and increased productivity.
"In some isolated companies, you will never know what's happening there," Shenzhen-based labor expert Liu said.
Guo Yuhua, a sociology professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, feels companies like Foxconn or Honda are a "microcosm of China's labor system." "The country's prosperity is based on migrant workers' blood and sweat, and the country certainly needs to do something for the laborers," Gou said.
Agrees Jin Bei, head of the industrial research institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. According to Jin, incidents like Foxconn and Honda show "one big problem: people are not machines."
Rising living standards and "individual dignity" mean that companies must find ways to treat workers well even under conditions of intense global competition, Jin wrote in a commentary Monday in the China Business Journal. "Otherwise, such tragedies and crises will be inevitable."
Huang Yiping, an economics professor at Peking University feels China must embrace higher wages to address the labor problem. "After three decades of rapid growth partly driven by cheap labor, China must adjust" to higher wages, Huang said.
Agrees Crothall. "The wages of these workers should be raised to decent levels so they won't feel they need to rely on overtime. That would give them time to socialize, relax and work through whatever issues they have," he said.
Foxconn and Honda said they would increase wages by 20 percent and 24 percent respectively besides announcing a slew of measures meant to boost the morale of their workers.
Shares of Honda, which announced recently that it would increase production in China by 30 percent to make 830,000 vehicles a year and makes the Accord and Civic sedan, Odyssey minivan, Jazz hatchback and CRV SUV in the mainland, closed 0.22 percent down at 2764 yen
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