Powerful business interests in China and Hong Kong have effectively blocked recent labor reforms, raising the likelihood of further bouts of wildcat strikes and other unrest, a report said yesterday.
The China Labor Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based group that monitors labor conditions in China, said Hong Kong business leaders recently helped block proposed legislation in Guangdong Province that would have enabled workers to initiate and join in collective bargaining with management.
It said the draft rules were a belated attempt by provincial leaders to rebalance labor relations strongly dominated by employers, usually in alliance with local governments, following a spate of strikes and other labor actions last summer.
“The government is increasingly anxious to forestall further social unrest by establishing a mechanism that can help resolve labor conflicts peacefully within enterprises, without the need for costly government intervention,” said the report, titled Swimming Against the Tide: A short history of labor conflicts in China and the government’s attempts to control it.
China outlaws labor organizing outside of the state-affiliated All China Federation of Trade Unions, whose representatives lack authority and often are seen as allies of management rather than workers.
The strikes last summer, often in factories supplying Japanese automakers, came as younger workers protesting poor conditions and low pay clashed with employers that often are struggling in a post-financial crisis era of rising costs and shrinking profit margins.
Though the conflicts were mostly resolved peacefully through negotiations, often after companies agreed to ad-hoc wage concessions, China has failed to effectively enforce labor reforms such as the 2008 Labor Contract Law, or to establish a system that lets workers have a real say over their working conditions, the report said.
The reforms proposed in Guangdong, one of China’s main export manufacturing hubs, aimed to defuse mounting tensions due to the imbalance in power between employers and workers, who lack any effective collective representation.
This is “not because the government has suddenly become pro-labor, but rather because such moves are now more in line with its overall objectives of sustainable economic development and social stability,” it said.
Despite cradle-to-grave protections in earlier decades, employers gained the upper hand as companies restructured in the 1990s, laying off tens of millions of workers. While big multinational companies tend to comply with labor regulations, abuses are common at China’s tens of thousands of smaller manufacturers, both foreign and locally invested.
Although overall wages are rising quickly, the lack of protections allows companies to get away with withholding pay and forcing workers to put up with excessive, illegal overtime and hazardous conditions, the report said.
UNCERTAINTY: Innolux activated a stringent supply chain management mechanism, as it did during the COVID-19 pandemic, to ensure optimal inventory levels for customers Flat-panel display makers AUO Corp (友達) and Innolux Corp (群創) yesterday said that about 12 to 20 percent of their display business is at risk of potential US tariffs and that they would relocate production or shipment destinations to mitigate the levies’ effects. US tariffs would have a direct impact of US$200 million on AUO’s revenue, company chairman Paul Peng (彭雙浪) told reporters on the sidelines of the Touch Taiwan trade show in Taipei yesterday. That would make up about 12 percent of the company’s overall revenue. To cope with the tariff uncertainty, AUO plans to allocate its production to manufacturing facilities in
Taiwan will prioritize the development of silicon photonics by taking advantage of its strength in the semiconductor industry to build another shield to protect the local economy, National Development Council (NDC) Minister Paul Liu (劉鏡清) said yesterday. Speaking at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee, Liu said Taiwan already has the artificial intelligence (AI) industry as a shield, after the semiconductor industry, to safeguard the country, and is looking at new unique fields to build more economic shields. While Taiwan will further strengthen its existing shields, over the longer term, the country is determined to focus on such potential segments as
Chizuko Kimura has become the first female sushi chef in the world to win a Michelin star, fulfilling a promise she made to her dying husband to continue his legacy. The 54-year-old Japanese chef regained the Michelin star her late husband, Shunei Kimura, won three years ago for their Sushi Shunei restaurant in Paris. For Shunei Kimura, the star was a dream come true. However, the joy was short-lived. He died from cancer just three months later in June 2022. He was 65. The following year, the restaurant in the heart of Montmartre lost its star rating. Chizuko Kimura insisted that the new star is still down
While China’s leaders use their economic and political might to fight US President Donald Trump’s trade war “to the end,” its army of social media soldiers are embarking on a more humorous campaign online. Trump’s tariff blitz has seen Washington and Beijing impose eye-watering duties on imports from the other, fanning a standoff between the economic superpowers that has sparked global recession fears and sent markets into a tailspin. Trump says his policy is a response to years of being “ripped off” by other countries and aims to bring manufacturing to the US, forcing companies to employ US workers. However, China’s online warriors
RSS