China Labour Bulletin is quoted in the following article. Copyright remains with the original publisher.
By business correspondent Karon Snowdon
Thu 12 Jun 2014
An arbitration commission in China has ordered the reinstatement of 40 workers who were sacked for going on strike, in a historic move for labour rights in China.
Local Chinese media is hailing it as the first arbitration decision in workers' favour in China, proclaiming it a sign of significant progress in the protection of labour rights.
The labour commission in Xiamen in Fujian province says the workers had done nothing illegal and ordered the company to pay them compensation.
The workers from CoActive Technologies Xiamen Company went on strike after the company announced its plans to relocate.
Workers participated in a 16-day strike in February against CoActive Technologies in protest against the compensation package offered, and were dismissed shortly after for breaching company policy.
China Labour Bulletin communications director Geoffrey Crothalll says the move is a step in the right direction, but China's labour movement still has a long battle ahead.
"Although it's certainly commendable that the courts are not allowing companies to sack workers with impunity any more there are still some hurdles to overcome," he said.
There are more than one million labour disputes in China each year
Independent trade unions are outlawed in mainland China, and labour activists are regularly detained.
Mr Crothalll says there has been a sharp increase in strikes since 2011, from an average of 10 per month to more than 100 in March this year.
He attributes the rising numbers to China's changing labour landscape.
"I think workers are much more confident in their ability to take collective action and I think there's a lot more at stake here," he said.
"There have been a lot of factory closures, a lot of mergers acquisitions and this has made workers nervous about their future."
Mr Crothalll says the government is having trouble keeping up as the number of worker disputes continue to rise.
"The government is responding on a case-by-case basis, it doesn't really have a strategic game plan," he said.