Striking workers create factory council in China

June 10, 2010

By KEITH BRADSHER

ZHONGSHAN, China — Striking workers at a Honda auto parts plant here are demanding the right to form their own labor union, something seldom allowed in China, and are preparing for a protest march on Friday morning.

Meanwhile, other scattered strikes have begun to ripple into Chinese provinces previously untouched by the labor unrest.

A near doubling of wages is the primary goal of the approximately 1,700 Honda workers on strike here in this southeastern China city, at the third Honda auto parts factory to face a work stoppage in the last two weeks. But this latest strike, which started Wednesday morning, has taken on political dimensions.

The strikers here have developed a sophisticated, democratic organization, in effect electing shop stewards to represent them in collective bargaining with management. They are also demanding the right to form a trade union separate from the government-controlled national federation of trade unions, which has long focused on maintaining labor peace for foreign investors.

“The trade union is not representing our views; we want our own union that will represent us,” said a striking worker, who insisted on anonymity for fear of retaliation by government authorities or the company.

A Honda spokesman declined to comment on the details of the strike.

Despite unusual forbearance in allowing the various strikes so far, the Chinese government has shown no interest in tolerating unions with full legal independence from the national union. And so far, government agencies at all levels have shown little tolerance for marches and other unauthorized public gatherings. It was unclear how they would react to a worker march on Friday morning. Dozens of workers gathered in clumps shortly before sunset on Thursday next to the eucalyptus-lined muddy canal in front of the sprawling parts factory and outspokenly criticized local authorities for seeming to side with the company.

The workers said that large numbers of police officers had been positioned in the factory on Wednesday and Thursday in an attempt to intimidate them. But they said they were resolved to remain on strike. The two other Honda parts factories shut down by walkouts in recent weeks have re-opened, after workers were promised large pay increases.

Geoffrey Crothall, the spokesman for China Labor Bulletin, a labor advocacy group based in Hong Kong that seeks independent labor unions and collective bargaining in mainland China, expressed surprise when told how the Honda workers here in Zhongshan had organized themselves. “It does reflect a new level of organization and sophistication” in Chinese labor relations, he said.

The Chinese government has not allowed unions with full legal independence from the national, state-controlled union, but it has occasionally finessed the issue by letting workers choose their factories’ representatives of the national union, or by allowing the creation of “employee welfare committees” in parallel with the official local units, said Mary Gallagher, a China labor specialist at the University of Michigan.

But these exceptions have tended to be in lower-profile industries like shoe manufacturing, and not in bastions of heavy industry like auto making.

Workers here were not specific Thursday about what would qualify as having their own union. They are mostly in their early 20s, more than half are women. Their education levels are low. Although several said they had high school degrees, Honda requires only junior high school educations.

The workers say they want to be paid as much as workers at the first Honda factory recently to go on strike, a high-tech transmission factory in Foshan where the workers are almost entirely young men with a couple years of vocational school training, in addition to high school degrees.

Besides the Honda strike here, there were fresh reports Thursday of strikes at Japanese- and Taiwanese-owned factories in at least five other cities outside the heavily industrial Guangdong Province, where all three Honda auto parts strikes have taken place.

But the strikes involving the other employers appeared to have ended quickly as managers, faced with an acute labor shortage, sought to address workers’ demands. Honda has settled the strikes at its other two factories as well.

Chinese-owned companies tend not to disclose when strikes have occurred, and it is not clear how many strikes overall have taken place in recent days.

The strike here has stopped work at a two-story factory that makes rear and side mirrors, door locks and a wide range of other auto parts for Honda assembly plants over the world. The workers here say that employees in each department of the factory held a meeting, discussed who would be their most persuasive representative and then selected that individual to represent them on a factory-wide council that has held negotiations with management. Municipal officials and representatives of the government-authorized labor union have also attended meetings of the workers’ council with management, workers said.

In a flier that workers said had been distributed to them by managers on Thursday morning, the factory’s management said it was beyond their authority to recognize a union. The management said that a government labor board would decide on the workers’ request by June 19, and asked that the workers’ return to their jobs in the meantime.

Dozens of workers from the factory gathered around a foreign reporter Thursday, even though clean-cut men in crisp shirts, perhaps plainclothes policemen or private security guards, were hovering nearby.

The workers, who insisted on anonymity because of lingering concerns about retaliation, said that a company manager had announced over loudspeakers late Thursday afternoon that all workers would be asked on Friday morning to sign a new contract and would be dismissed if they failed to do so.

Asked if they would sign, the workers replied with a chorus of “no!”

Since going on strike on Wednesday morning, the workers have marched around inside the factory each day shouting slogans like “Increase our wages”, before going home each evening to cramped apartments in nearby buildings.

The workers voiced skepticism that the company would meet their demands, mainly an 89 percent increase in their pay. It is currently 900 renminbi a month, or $132, for a 42-hour week, not far above the official minimum wage. An 89 percent increase would be about 800 additional renminbi a month, or a raise of about $117.

Workers said that they had read news reports on the Internet that Honda had already granted raises of 500 renminbi a month, or $73, in settling other strikes. Honda has not confirmed the raises, indicating only that they were large in percentage terms.

Workers at the factory here said that their jobs required them to stand for 8 hours a day at their posts, and that pregnant women were only allowed to sit in their last trimester. Workers also complained that they not allowed to speak while working — a common requirement in Chinese factories — and that they had to obtain passes before going to the bathroom. They said they were criticized by managers if they took too long getting a drink of water.

A municipal official standing with a group of private security guards outside the factory said that there was no evidence that Honda had broken any employment laws. The workers “just want more money, they’re inspired by the other Honda strikes,” said the official, who insisted on anonymity.

The strike began Wednesday morning after a woman employee showed up with her identity card improperly attached to her shirt and was denied entry by a security guard. The women criticized the guard, who responded by shoving her to the ground, the workers said.

Workers said that the factory’s management had offered an increase of 100 renminbi a month for workers’ allowance for food and housing. The allowance is currently 300 renminbi a month, or $44.

Unlike many Chinese factories, the Honda parts factory does not have a dormitory. Workers live in nearby tiny apartments, typically paying $44 a month for rent and utilities for a 100-square-foot room. Factories find it easier to control workers when they are concentrated in dormitories, Ms. Gallagher said.

Elsewhere, Brother Industries of Japan said that strikes had stopped work for the past week at two sewing machine factories in Xi’an in central China’s Shaanxi province. Production resumed on Thursday morning after what Zhao Wei, the president of the government-approved union at the factories, described as “concessions” by the company. He refused to be more specific and the company said that negotiations were continuing.

There were reports of strikes at several Taiwanese-owned factories. These included a sporting goods factory in Jiangxi province in east-central China, a liquid crystal display components factory in Shanghai, a plastic factory at another city near Shanghai, and an audio components factory across the Pearl River from Zhongzhan in Shenzhen, which is also in Guangdong Province..

Chen Xiaoduan in Shanghai contributed research.