Hundreds of Chinese workers demanding overtime pay went on strike at one of the world's busiest ports, holding up thousands of shipping containers at the terminal in southern China, Hong Kong newspapers reported yesterday.
Crane operators and truck drivers at the Chiwan Container Terminal in the boomtown of Shenzhen stopped working at midnight on Tuesday, pro-Beijing newspaper Wen Wei Po in Hong Kong reported.
A man who answered the phone at the port's offices said services had partially resumed on Tuesday, but he refused to give more details.
Calls to the company's headquarters and the local government went unanswered because of the weeklong labor holiday in China.
More than 400 dock workers were unhappy about wages and have accused management of failing to pay them overtime as required by law, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported.
They staged a sit-in outside the container terminal's headquarters on Tuesday, the paper said. Police were called in to maintain order, but no violence was reported.
The Post quoted an unnamed worker who said they took industrial action on International Labor Day to express their anger.
"Many of us have sacrificed our health and spare time to work for the company. We only have one or two days of rest each month. The company should treat us better," the man was quoted as saying.
Dockers earn about 4,000 yuan (US$519) on average per month, the paper reported. The wage is considered high as government statistics showed the national average monthly urban wage last year was 980 yuan (US$127).
Chiwan Container Terminal is one of the world's busiest according to its Web site.
Chiwan Container Terminal is a joint venture among Chiwan Wharf Holdings Ltd, Hong Kong's Kerry Holdings Ltd and Hidoney Development Ltd.
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
RSS