Photo credit: Jenson/ Shutterstock.com
Letter from the Editors
This month CLB published a new report, Breaking the Mould: Germany's Supply Chain Act as a New Approach to Global Labour Rights Accountability. This report examines nine recent case of labour rights violations within the Chinese supply chains of multinational companies in the manufacturing sector, exhibiting both the potential and the challenges of enforcing high labour standards on an international scale. Through the investigations, CLB uncovered severe labour abuses, such as excessive working hours, unsafe conditions, and suppression of worker activism, in the Chinese supply chains.
The report has a special focus on German firms accountable under Germany’s pioneering Supply Chain Due Diligence Act. The Act represents a groundbreaking shift in corporate responsibility, setting a new standard for global business practices by requiring companies to identify, assess, and address human rights and environmental risks within their supply chains.
Download the full text PDF here.
Thanks for reading!
CLB editors
Workers’ Voices
Photo: Yingguan workers sit in front of the factory to protest.
"The factory workshop has been reduced. There used to be several workshops, but now everything has been reduced to one workshop. Boss, just compensate us quickly so we can leave; stop dragging this on..."
–said a worker of Yingguan Industrial in Shenzhen
On 8 April, 2024, Workers at Yingguan Industrial (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd., gathered in front of the factory to protest against the company's use of furlough to avoid paying legally mandated severance. Signs of scaling down and eventual shutdown of Yingguan had appeared long before the April 8 holiday notice. As early as January 16 of this year, four months before the sudden announcement of the furlough, workers had posted videos online noting the reduction of production and demanding compensation.
In March, more employees felt they were forced to resign voluntarily as the company gave meagre wages and raised living costs. Some workers posted videos pointing out that the Yingguan company was increasing accommodation costs. According to a company notice shared by workers, the water and electricity fees were exorbitantly high. A worker said,
“With a salary of 2360 yuan, can we only afford accommodation but not cooking? (If we count) one day of expenses, breakfast 5 yuan, lunch 15 yuan, dinner 15 yuan, washing hair and taking a bath cost 38 yuan, totaling 73 yuan per day. 73 yuan x 30 days = 2190 yuan. Oh, and there's cold water and electricity that haven’t been accounted for. It feels like a month's salary isn’t enough to cover living expenses."
Photo: Yingguan workers upload footage of exorbitant water charges on Douyin
After workers protested furloughs in April, CLB contacted various levels of unions where Yingguan Industrial is located. We found that the unions were basically unaware of the situation, and only the District Labor Inspectorate intervened in the case. Please see the article for full details.
Strike Action
Photo: Sanitation workers held a sit-in in front of the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau in Fenggang
A drop in cases in July, but protests in the electronics and apparel sectors continue. China Labour Bulletin's Strike Map recorded 88 cases in July. The number of incidents in the construction sector (34) was lower than the previous month (64). The manufacturing and heavy industries combined had 34 incidents, making up about 38% of the total, while the service industry and transportation sector had 7 and 3 incidents respectively.
In the electronics industry, there were 11 worker protest incidents. In Huangpi District, Wuhan, workers at Wuhan Sunon Electronic Co Ltd went on strike to protest a two months' wage arrears and two years' unpaid social insurance. At Changshuo Technology Co., Ltd in Shanghai, disputes over layoffs and compensation during ownership transfer led to a worker strike. There were also incidents where electronics factories attempted to evade compensation by pressuring workers to resign voluntarily. On July 25, workers at Hengdexin Precision Technology Co., Ltd. in Huizhou, Guangdong, went on strike, stating that the company was trying to force them out by reducing unit prices and withholding goods. Additionally, there were 7 incidents related to wage arrears and factory relocations in the textile and apparel sector.
Sanitation workers in Fenggang, Dongguan went on strike for nearly twenty days over reduced pay from the new company. Sanitation workers in Fenggang, Dongguan, went on strike on 2 July, protesting the reduced wage provided by the new company after the project was handed over. Online reports said the workers stopped working due to dissatisfaction with the pay cut. However, company representatives denied this claim, and the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau stated that the strike was unrelated to wage arrears. Although the new sanitation company claimed that the work stoppage was due to a "transition period" during the handover, the stoppage went for over ten days, far exceeding a typical transition period. Another issue was that companies usually keep old workers before hiring new ones. That the company opted instead to employ temporary workers instead of long-time senior workers indicates a conflict between workers and the company regarding the pay. After nearly 20 days of struggle, the previous operator resumed control of the project, and workers returned to work.
Workers’ Requests for Help
photo: wife of died worker Jiang DengShuai raised questions of this case.
Lawsuit over failure in recognizing work injury after sudden death of an overworked salesman. At the beginning of 2022, Jiang Dengshuai joined Muyuan Foodstuff as a salesman. A year later, he died suddenly in the company’s dormitory at the age of 33-year-old. WeChat records reveal that during the last 36 hours of his life, he was unable to rest as he hoped. He worked overtime until 4:00 a.m. on the previous day of his death. Jiang sought medical attention at the hospital after feeling unwell due to continuous chest pain. Despite being diagnosed with a lung infection, the company leaders pressured him to continue working, urging him to buy groceries, cook, and handle logistics communication. The blurred boundary between work and rest in Jiang Dengshuai’s workplace and dormitory, both located in a private house, likely contributed to his exhaustion. Before his sudden death, he was even working on his dormitory bed.
Muyuan Foodstuff initially promised Jiang’s wife, Feng, that if his death met the conditions of a workplace-related incident, the family could receive a pension of 1.5 million yuan. However, after the Neixiang County Bureau of Human Resources and Social Security decided not to recognize the death as work-related, the company offered only 50,000 yuan as consolation. In response, Feng publicly questioned the company’s stance, asking, “Muyuan Qin boss, is an employee’s life worth only 50,000 yuan?” Despite public pressure, the Human Resources and Social Security Bureau maintained its decision after an administrative reconsideration. Feng subsequently filed a lawsuit against the Bureau and the Neixiang County Government in April 2024. After rounds of disputes, Jiang was finally recognized as suffering from a work-related death, and the decision was formally reversed on 7 August.
CLB in the news
China Labour Bulletin was cited in an article published by Nikkei Asia on the labour strikes in China, highlighting that
“incidents involving the property and manufacturing sectors were up 12%, accounting for 80% of the total.”
The author included two labour protests documented by CLB in the article, the first one being the dispute at solar panel maker Akcome Technology over pay cuts and withdrawal of social security contributions, the second case being the protest at Yangzhou Baoyi Shoe Manufacturing in November, when workers raised compensation issues affecting laid-off workers. These protests not only showed that long working hours and low minimum wages are still common in China, they also “casts a light on the disparity in social security coverage between urban and migrant workers”.