DECEMBER 21, 2008, 11:10 P.M. ET
By Shai Oster
CHAOZHOU, China -- As China's economy stalls, rising public unrest has bubbled up in a series of labor strikes across the country.
In an unusual response, authorities -- facing a delicate task in tamping down disquiet -- have been allowing the protests and staging high-profile meetings with strike leaders to talk over concessions.
A strike by nearly 8,000 taxi drivers in the southwestern city of Chongqing in early November helped spark the recent wave. After three days, the city's top Communist Party official, Bo Xilai, held a three-hour meeting with cabbies' representatives, televised live. Mr. Bo, who is also a member of the Communist Party's powerful central committee, urged drivers to set up an organization to mediate between their employers and the government.
Soon after, strikes spread across the country among taxi drivers and workers in sectors from refrigerated food to teaching, with similar results.
The last widespread worker unrest in China came during the Asian financial crisis a decade ago, when the government dismantled cradle-to-grave welfare and slashed payrolls in struggling state-owned enterprises across the northern rust belt. At that time, protests were quickly suppressed and their leaders arrested, while the media was forbidden from covering them.
Now, the main focus of ire is the private sector, which has been especially hard hit by the current economic meltdown. The surge in bankruptcies and layoffs has led to an increase in labor arbitration cases in Guangzhou. According to China Daily, a government-owned newspaper, there have been 60,000 cases so far this year, twice the previous year's rate.
That's played a part in spurring the protests and an implicit recognition that workers need some kind of independent representation.
To some degree, strikes aren't new in China. Government researchers estimate that tens of thousands of protests take place every year over a wide range of issues from workers' back pay to illegal land seizures. Most end peacefully after the government meets some demands.
But few have been widely publicized or involved quasi-recognition of independent worker representatives, like the recent taxi-driver strikes have. The country has one official union, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, but it is government-run and has little independence. Efforts at setting up true unions have always been crushed.
Recent protests show that moves in that direction are being tolerated to some extent. In the southern city of Chaozhou, an export-reliant region that has been especially hard hit by the global economic slowdown, taxi drivers last month decided to hold their own strike after reading newspaper accounts of the events in Chongqing.
On Nov. 17, licensed cab drivers in Chaozhou blockaded city hall, demanding a crackdown on fare-grabbing gypsy cabs and high management fees. The drivers, mostly migrant workers from poorer inland provinces, circulated a list of demands and appointed representatives.
Unsatisfied with the government's response, the taxi drivers struck again 10 days later. More workers turned out this time, and some of the protests turned violent, as strikers damaged cars and clashed with police.
But instead of cracking down, authorities offered taxi driver representatives, including Chen Guoyue, a 24-year-old from Anhui province, a face-to-face meeting. The town's mayor promised to meet some of their demands, including clamping down on unlicensed competition and stopping the expansion of the city's taxi fleet.
However, not all the drivers' wishes were met. Mr. Chen's application to organize an independent taxi-drivers association and a Web site was denied. The government said it would set up an association for drivers but didn't give details.
"It's increasingly untenable to view strikes as unacceptable, there are simply too many of them and they are everywhere now," says Robin Munro, research director at Hong Kong-based labor-rights group China Labour Bulletin. "They're happening whether they're legal or not."
Chinese officials have signaled their new thinking in official statements. "Strikes are just like quarrels between a husband and wife and shouldn't be taken too seriously," said Wang Tongxin, vice-chairman of the Shenzhen branch of the government-run trade union association, according to a report of a speech published in a local newspaper early this summer.
Another reason for the new wave of protests in China is new regulations in certain cities that make it easier to strike. Shenzhen, a special economic zone near Hong Kong, pioneered many of the reforms that transformed China's economy, and has been leading the way since November with new regulations that strengthen workers' rights and legalize collective bargaining.
After the new Shenzhen regulations, the legal right to strike is "only a step away," another trade union official from neighboring Shantou, another city in Guangdong Province, wrote in a widely republished column.
The government appears willing to tolerate some levels of worker unrest -- but only as long as the actions don't take on the overtones of a political protest. In Chaozhou, after the second strike, an open letter from the government spelling out its concessions said, "We again appeal for all the taxi drivers to express your demands and pursuits in a rational, calm, legal and reasonable way."
-- Sue Feng in Beijing contributed to this article.