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Letter from the Editors
Lately, the Chinese government passed new legislation laying out a plan to delay the retirement age over the course of 15 years, starting from 1 January, 2025. In general, the current statutory retirement age for male employees is 60 years old, and the retirement age for female employees who are classified as managers is 55 years old.
Extending workers’ retirement age is likely to increase competition in the labour market as more workers are compelled to work before they can receive their pension payment. This will happen in an environment where young workers are struggling for jobs. This month, youth unemployment (ages 16-24 and not in school) reached 18.8%, up from 17.1%, marking the highest rate this year. This rise is likely tied to factory closures and relocations, raising concerns over severance pay and labour rights violations.
Besides challenges faced by workers in the labour market, China Labour Bulletin released an extensive report Unprotected yet Unyielding: The Decade-Long Protest of China’s Healthcare Workers (2013-2023). It documents the last ten years of healthcare workers’ rights violations, taking a case-based approach to understanding how workers have been owed wages, overworked, treated unequally, suffered from unsafe working conditions and ultimately unheard and not well represented. Download the full report as a PDF here.
Thanks for reading!
CLB editors
Workers’ Voices
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“I don’t want other women to be harassed in the future.”
---He Zongying, a female worker at BYD consistently pursuing justice after sexually harassed and illegally fired.
In October 2022, He Zongying, a female technician at FinDreams Battery factory in Wuhan, a subsidiary of Chinese EV giant BYD, reported verbal abuse and threats from a male colleague. When He reported the case to the company and later called police, the company withheld surveillance footage, offered no clear complaint process, and eventually fired He at December 2022. The union remained silent, too.
He sought labour arbitration in December 2022. And she sued the company for illegal dismissal after she was fired. Although she initially lost her case, she won on appeal in December 2023, with the court ruling her dismissal illegal and awarding her 6,000 yuan in compensation.
Her attempt to prosecute the colleague for harassment failed at court. He later went to complain about this harassment case through internal company procedures at BYD. Despite her efforts, BYD asked her to delete online posts about the case. The company closed He’s case and said they would not conduct an investigation, as the man had left in January 2023.
He Zongying is actively documenting the case on social media, as she saw her fight as broader than her own experience, hoping to prevent future harassment of women. CLB reached out to both BYD and FinDreams Battery for comments but had not received a response from either by the time of publication.
Union representation
Photo: BYD Managers called a meeting with He Zongying to inform her that she is being penalised. Source: Video posted online.
He Zongying admitted that she had not asked for help from the official union at any point and also noted that the union had not done anything to get involved in the incident. According to He, these company unions rarely serve any real function and mostly just provide employees with certain minor benefits, such as summertime cooling products:
“When it actually comes down to an issue concerning the interests of the employees and the company, it [the union] will basically remain silent.”
Throughout the entire process, He wasn’t informed of any company procedures for handling harassment, and the incident tarnished her resume, leading to job rejections. She now sells snacks at a street stand.
The case revealed failures at multiple levels: the company violated laws on female labor protection, and the union didn’t fulfill its legal role in representing workers. If the union had been proactive, it might have prevented the arbitration and ruling against the company. He’s case highlights the broader issue of inadequate worker protections in the industry. Strengthening unions and improving complaint processes are essential to ensuring fair treatment for all workers.
CLB Insights
In the first half of 2024, the number of workers’ protests recorded by the China Labour Bulletin’s Strike Map remained high, exceeding the same period last year. The Strike Map recorded 719 collective actions in the first half of 2024, up from 696 incidents during the same period the previous year.
The Strike Map data analysis shows that manufacturing protests related to wage arrears, factory relocations, and closures were high, with 233 incidents (32.4%) recorded — slightly higher than the 197 incidents (28.3%) reported in the first half of 2023. On average, the map collects 30-40 incidents each month.
Wage arrears in the construction industry were the main reason for protests in the first half of 2024, with a total of 344 incidents (47.8%) logged, slightly higher than the 320 incidents (46.0%) recorded during the same period last year. Meanwhile, protests in the service industry (64 incidents, 8.9%) and logistics industry (32 incidents, 4.45%) were lower than last year (97 and 55 incidents, respectively).
China Labour Bulletin’s newly published half-year data analysis discusses specific protests by workers in the manufacturing, construction, service, and transportation sectors.
Strike Action
photo: Sanitation workers blocking the road to demand unpaid wages in Changge, Henan (Source: Yesterday)
Fewer protest cases in the manufacturing sector in August. China Labour Bulletin's Strike Map recorded 85 worker protests in August 2024. The number of cases in the construction industry (42 incidents) slightly increased from the previous month (34 incidents), while incidents in the manufacturing and heavy industry sector saw a decline from 34 to 20 incidents. Transportation and service industries recorded 8 and 7 incidents each.
The Strike Map recorded 7 cases in the electronics sector. Workers protested against factory relocations in Dongguan and Shenzhen, Guangdong Province. In particular, a protesting worker threatened to jump from a rooftop on 29 August. Additionally, workers at BYD's subsidiary, Fudi Battery in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province, went on strike due to declining wages on 19 August. Workers reported that while their working hours and output had increased and their basic wage had risen, their overall income had actually dropped. Outside the electronics sector, there were 3 protests in the furniture industry and 2 in the garment industry.
Sanitation workers strike for unpaid wages. In August, the Strike Map recorded 4 strike cases involving sanitation workers in North and Northeast China. On 16 August, sanitation workers in Changge, Henan Province, demanded their unpaid wages by blocking the entrance of Senyuan Group by at least 8 cleaning vehicles. Two days later, sanitation workers in Weifang, Shandong Province, also blocked roads to demand unpaid wages.
In Gongzhuling, Liaoning Province, a strike by sanitation workers from 26 to 27 August left the streets littered with garbage. Nearly a hundred sanitation workers staged a sit-in in a park after their wages had not been paid for six months. In Fengrun District of Tangshan, Hebei Province, sanitation workers also protested against owed wages for up to six months. Nearly a year ago, the same group of workers went without pay for six months. They only received their back pay, after protesting with banners at the company’s entrance and striking for three days.
Workers’ Requests for Help
Photo: Francisco Little/ ShutterStock
A delivery worker struggled to get compensation for work injuries. On 30 July, Mr. Huo from Qingdao, Shandong, was injured while working as a courier for J&T Express. He went to a shop to pick up a package and was unexpectedly hit on the heel by a falling iron plate at the shop’s entrance. The hospital diagnosed him with a ruptured Achilles tendon, and his medical expenses reached nearly 20,000 yuan. When he asked the delivery company for help, the company refused his work injury compensation, claiming that no labour contract was signed and there was no formal employment relationship.
Although Mr. Huo underwent two days of training before he started to deliver goods, the head of the local J&T Express station stated that he was not a formal employee, “Mr. Huo has only paid about 400 yuan as deposit, which does not meet the standard for purchasing personal accident insurance, so the company will not provide any compensation.” Mr. Huo has since applied for legal aid. It is common that couriers registering at platforms lack formal labour contracts, thus companies can refuse to pay for a formal work injury insurance.
Platforms should not shift their responsibility on workers and exempt themselves from the obligation to ensure workers’ safety. As a good example, Singapore just passed the bill to recognize gig economy workers as distinct labour class, hence delivery worker such as Mr. Huo could be able to get the same level of work injury compensation insurance as formal employees.
New employees of a public institution are dismissed after 4 months of work. In August 2022, Ruzhou City in Henan Province announced the recruitment of 50 staff for the Center for Disease Control (CDC). 41 candidates passed the exam and were hired after 17 months. However, four months into their jobs, they were dismissed without receiving any salary after complaints were filed of illegal restrictive hiring conditions.
Among the newly hired staff, four signed voluntary resignation letters and received compensation, while the rest continued to work. They believed that the termination was illegal and have appealed to higher authorities, since no formal dismissal notice was issued. The staff rejected the dismissal as they have quitted their former job and studied hard for the exam. Some of them were former non-permanent CDC staff, who had worked as temporary employees in the clinic for ten years. Not only did they lose their temporary job, they also got forcibly dismissed from their new job. The dismissal happened when Ruzhou City was reducing its public institution workforce by 20.7%, cutting 1,053 positions since 2023.