China Labour Bulletin is quoted in the following article. Copyright remains with the original publisher.
Liang Shih-huang and Staff Reporter
2014-03-14
More than 1,000 strikes have taken place in China over the past two and a half years as workers have become more aware of their rights, a report claims.
Between early June 2011 and late December 2013, a total of 1,171 strikes took place across mainland China, according to a report published in February by the China Labour Bulletin.
The higher incidence of strikes shows structural changes in the local labor market, mounting risks for international enterprises operating in China and the growing confidence of the country's workforce, the author of the report said.
More than 1,000 workers went on strike earlier this month at an IBM factory in Shenzhen in southern China's Guangdong province, objecting to the terms of their transfer to Lenovo as part of its US$2.3 billion acquisition of the US technology group's x86 server business.
Guangdong has been the site of many strikes and protests as many factories in the southern manufacturing hub have been forced to shut down, merge or relocate due to a slowing of the country's economic growth rate and the trend for manufacturers to move their operations to central and western parts of China where labor costs are lower.
In November 2013, hundreds of employees also downed tools at a Nokia factory in Dongguan, near Shenzhen, complaining of changes following Nokia's sale of its mobile phone business to US software giant Microsoft.
Last August, employees at a Cooper Tire factory in the eastern province of Shandong seized the plant, kicked out management staff and withheld financial information to boycott the Ohio-based company's decision to sell the factory to Apollo Tyres of India. The industrial action wrecked what would have been the largest Indian acquisition of a US company. The strike had also caused Cooper Tire's profits for the third quarter of last year to drop by US$29 million.
The changing structure of China's economy has affected not only workers but also employers, the report noted. Jiangsu Huaxi Group, which has interests in metals, textiles, property and logistics, cut salaries by up to 15% for board members and senior executives at one of its affiliate companies after its textile factory posted a decline in profits of 60% in 2013 compared with 2012.
The strikes fit a growing pattern of industrial activism that has emerged as China's economy slows down. A worsening labor shortage has undermined the balance of power in relations between workers and employers, while smartphone ownership and social media platforms have helped workers to organize themselves and made them more aware of the changing environment, the report said.
The report also attributed the rampant strikes to a lack of professional labor unions and communication channels between employers and employees.