China has ordered owners of a huge Taiwan-backed shoe factory to address striking workers’ grievances about unpaid social security, an official said yesterday.
Thousands of employees at a factory owned by Yue Yuen Industrial (Holdings) Ltd (裕元工業), which calls itself the world’s largest branded footwear maker, in Dongguan City have been on strike since Monday last week, although some have returned to work, according to a labor rights group.
The Chinese Communist Party fears an independent labor movement could threaten its grip on power, so it only allows one government-linked trade union.
However, activists say government officials have been more sympathetic to individual grievances against factories, especially those funded by foreign companies or investors from Hong Kong or Taiwan. Yue Yuen is a company owned by a Taiwanese family.
A Chinese Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security official said the government was aware of the Yue Yuen issue and Dongguan officials had ordered the company to rectify the situation.
“According to our preliminary investigation, the Dongguan Yue Yuen shoe factory really has the problem of not strictly submitting social security payments,” ministry spokesman Li Zhong (李忠) told a news conference in Beijing, according to a transcript posted online.
“The Dongguan City social security bureau... has ordered the enterprise to carry out rectification in accordance with the law by April 25,” he said, adding the ministry would seek to protect the legal rights of workers.
ACTIVIST FREED
Meanwhile, a Chinese labor activist has been freed after being detained for more than two days by security agents whom he says tried to convince him not to make contact with workers involved in the Yue Yuen labor strike.
Zhang Zhiru’s (張治儒) brief detention underscores nervousness among officials about the strike. A colleague of Zhang’s at the Shenzhen Chunfeng Labor Dispute Service Center, which he runs, was detained separately on Tuesday and has not been released, Zhang said by telephone yesterday.
Labor activists say the strike is one of China’s biggest since market reforms started in the late 1970s. It is already starting to have ripple effects on businesses.
Zhang had been working with other activists and lawyers to help workers at Yue Yuen organize and press their demands regarding social insurance payments. He visited the Dongguan site on Monday after an attempt last week was thwarted by security agents.
Speaking from the southern city of Shenzhen, next to Dongguan, Zhang said domestic security agents summoned him to a meeting on Tuesday and asked him to promise he would not make contact with the workers.
He refused and was taken to what the agents said was a “vacation area” in the suburbs of nearby Guangzhou, where they confiscated his mobile phone, confined him to a room and barred him from making outside contact, he said.
‘FUN TRIP’
They tried to convince him to write a statement that he was “safe and on a trip for fun with friends,” but he refused. He was allowed a telephone call to his wife on Wednesday afternoon.
Late on Thursday morning, he was driven back to Shenzhen, where he lives, and released. Zhang said he was again told not to make contact with the striking workers.
“They said this would be going against the work of the government,” which he was told was trying to facilitate an arrangement to end the strike.
“But, definitely, if the workers have a need or if they have some questions and come to us we will still give them opinions and suggestions, telling them how they can better protect their interests,” Zhang said.
GROWING CONCERN: Some senior Trump administration officials opposed the UAE expansion over fears that another TSMC project could jeopardize its US investment Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is evaluating building an advanced production facility in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and has discussed the possibility with officials in US President Donald Trump’s administration, people familiar with the matter said, in a potentially major bet on the Middle East that would only come to fruition with Washington’s approval. The company has had multiple meetings in the past few months with US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and officials from MGX, an influential investment vehicle overseen by the UAE president’s brother, the people said. The conversations are a continuation of talks that
With an approval rating of just two percent, Peruvian President Dina Boluarte might be the world’s most unpopular leader, according to pollsters. Protests greeted her rise to power 29 months ago, and have marked her entire term — joined by assorted scandals, investigations, controversies and a surge in gang violence. The 63-year-old is the target of a dozen probes, including for her alleged failure to declare gifts of luxury jewels and watches, a scandal inevitably dubbed “Rolexgate.” She is also under the microscope for a two-week undeclared absence for nose surgery — which she insists was medical, not cosmetic — and is
Nintendo Co hopes to match the runaway success of the Switch when its leveled-up new console hits shelves on Thursday, with strong early sales expected despite the gadget’s high price. Featuring a bigger screen and more processing power, the Switch 2 is an upgrade to its predecessor, which has sold 152 million units since launching in 2017 — making it the third-best-selling video game console of all time. However, despite buzz among fans and robust demand for pre-orders, headwinds for Nintendo include uncertainty over US trade tariffs and whether enough people are willing to shell out. The Switch 2 “is priced relatively high”
Alchip Technologies Ltd (世芯), an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designer specializing in artificial-intelligence (AI) chips, yesterday said that small-volume production of 3-nanometer (nm) chips for a key customer is on track to start by the end of this year, dismissing speculation about delays in producing advanced chips. As Alchip is transitioning from 7-nanometer and 5-nanometer process technology to 3 nanometers, investors and shareholders have been closely monitoring whether the company is navigating through such transition smoothly. “We are proceeding well in [building] this generation [of chips]. It appears to me that no revision will be required. We have achieved success in designing
RSS