Han Dongfang is a Chinese labor-rights activist and director of the China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based non-governmental organization that pushes labor rights on the mainland. The subject of labor rights is under greater scrutiny as central government officials work to bolster the economy and cope with the prospects of unrest in a time of rising unemployment. That creates tensions with China’s new labor-rights laws, which among other things gave workers in China additional weight in settling disputes with employers. Those rights have been particularly tested in China’s manufacturing-heavy Pearl River Delta region, where businesses and local officials have pressed for an easing of the new laws.
Mr. Han, in a discussion yesterday at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Hong Kong, discussed how greater collective bargaining rights could help Beijing deal with growing unrest. Currently, only China’s government-controlled union can bargain with employers. The excerpts below have been edited for length and clarity:
I can only talk about the Pearl River Delta area. Strikes that involve more than 1,000 workers are happening every day. Not calculated [are] strikes with less than 1,000 workers involved. Those are quite extraordinary figures. Think about those that involve 100 workers, 200 workers, 500 workers, or workers [who are] back claiming salaries at the government office. That’s a really scary thing…
In China, we have a 1.3 billion population, we have the world’s worst corruption and we have probably one of the world’s worst anger [issues] increasing in this society. We don’t have a proper system to make people sit down [to deal with] whatever the problem you have — big problems, small problems, you hate each other, you like each other or you dislike each other. This country, after 30 years of reform, definitely [has] more than one or two different interest groups. You have many different things that need to be resolved with the peaceful idea of sitting down. That’s why I am here and would like to share [my ideas] with you about the collective bargaining system.
To me, it’s a peaceful solution — a peaceful system — that makes employers and employees sit down in a regular term, once a year, two years, three years, depending on the industry and size of the factory. You can talk about salaries, working conditions, compensation, holidays, all of these things you can settle at the negotiating table. You don’t have to push the workers away… If you push somebody into the street, this somebody becomes anti-government, and from a pure labor dispute case it leads into a political matter.
This is the point I’m trying to make. In this country, we need this system. I think the collective bargaining system is ready in China. Not ready in the sense that the government is completely for it. Ready, in the sense that we need it.
Earlier we mentioned the strikes happening in the Pearl River Delta… The workers, if they had a collective bargaining system, they could bargain at the factory level with their bosses so they wouldn’t make their problem a matter for demonstrations. The labor dispute level shown it’s time to set up the system — and not only for the workers’ interest — for protecting workers’ rights. … For the government’s interests, it’s better to settle the problem — especially a labor dispute problem, especially a compensation problem — in the factory [and in] workplaces, rather than always coming to hate the government.
I don’t understand the government’s mentality. If they understood the market economy in a better way, in the correct way, why don’t they let the workers and the employers settle their problems? [They are] basically economic matters, financial matters, and [they should] settle their problems at the factory level, between them. Why should you put yourself into the situation as somebody trying to block the way for these parties to negotiate? … You can prevent them from coming to the government at the factory level and they can be stopped. That to me is … the best way to make a harmonious society, or create less political instability…
Compared with five, six, seven years ago, workers’ rights awareness is much higher, and not only with migrant workers. With retired workers, if you don’t have enough for retirement, or workers kicked out from state owned enterprises during the process of reform. If you read what they said 2002 and 2003, it was a different language they were talking. At that time they were [more] innocent and helpless, talking about their need of the government to help them, even if there were lots of demonstrations. That’s different from now. Now, a lot of these people are taking legal action, and hiring lawyers and using the laws to protect themselves. To me, that’s a huge difference.
– Carlos Tejada