You are in Uyghur News » World Tibet News »

In face of worker unrest, China launches 'Strike-Hard' campaign

Date: Friday, 02-July-2010

Please

Epoch Times
June 30, 2010

A wave of strikes in Chinese factories recentlyhas highlighted the lack of authentic rights forChinese workers and other inequities in Chinesesociety. In response, the regime is launching a ?Strike-Hard? campaign.

According to China analysts, the recent wave ofstrikes is a reflection of simmering socialdiscontent and unrest as a result of socialinequality, injustice, and rising inflation. Manyof the striking workers are not only demandingpay raises, but are also asking for independent unions.

If the strikes escalate they may threaten China'sposition as the factory of the world, and thusthreaten the communist regime?s popularlegitimacy and survival. However, experts saythat responding to the workers demands with brute force will not work.

On June 13 the Chinese Ministry of PublicSecurity announced that it will launch aseven-month-long "Strike-Hard" campaign to ?crackdown on violent crimes that seriously affect thepublic?s sense of security? as China goes throughan economic transition and social transformation.

Rising labor rights awareness

Xu Yimin, a migrant workers? rights activist inJilin Province, in his blog called for anindependent labor union, stating that the stringof suicides at Foxconn and the subsequent strikesacross the country were mainly due to ?workershaving no voice, rights, or means of expression.?

New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV) said in aJune 24 report that last year, migrant ruralworkers from northeastern Jilin Province appliedto authorities to form their own union but were rejected.

Around the same time the state-run All-ChinaFederation of Trade Unions released a reportwarning that young migrant workers areincreasingly willing to make demands from thestate, a development construed as ?a test for stability in the country.?

Official unions suppress strikes

Labor unions in China are state-controlled andgenerally side with the management and localcommunist officials, instead of representingworkers. Thus, while on the surface it appearsthat the regime has allowed the recent strikes totake place, it was actually only in foreign-ownedcompanies that workers were permitted to strike,according to a recent analysis in The Epoch Times.

The report found that, "The greatest benefit [theregime] stands to gain by allowing [the strikes]is a better international face for its politicalsystem - protests allowed at multinationalenterprises could make it seem to the world thatthe regime is changing its policies of clampingdown on even the most fundamental of people?s rights.?

Among the several-dozen plants where strikes tookplace in May, two serve as examples of the verydifferent outcomes: the Japanese-owned Hondafactory in Foshan, Guangdong Province, and aChinese-owned and operated cotton mill in Pingdingshan City, Henan Province.

Honda workers eventually claimed victory andreceived pay raises, while striking workers atthe Pingdingshan cotton mill were brutallycracked down on by 2,000 to 3,000 police on June 1.

However, workers in both plants accused thegovernment-backed unions of suppressing the striking workers.

"The union is worse than the mafia," workers atthe Pingdingshan cotton mill told Asia Weekly.

Workers at the Honda plant said the officiallocal union took workers? money but suppressedthe strike with violence. The workers thereforedemanded the reorganization of the existing localunion and reelection of the union chairmen and relevant personnel.

Media black-out

At the same time the Communist Partysuperficially acquiesced to the strikes at theforeign-funded manufacturing plants, China?sMinister of Commerce played down their significance in comment to state media.

And while Chinese media devoted ample coverage tothe Honda workers? strike in May, BBC China andHong Kong?s South China Morning Post recentlyreported that China?s Central PropagandaDepartment has issued an order to kill domestic media coverage on the subject.

Regime facing challenges

A number of China experts say the regime islaunching the "Strike-Hard" campaign in responseto the raft of social challenges that threatenits leadership, credibility, and survival.

Economic and political commentator Jason Ma saidin a commentary program on NTDTV that for yearstension and social conflicts under communist rulehave been accumulating, and are now beginning tosurface. This can be seen in the spate of theschool killings, the recent strikes, and thedesperate and violent resistance to forceddemolition exhibited by Chinese citizens over thepast few months, he says. Mr. Ma argues that thisall makes the regime worried that public discontent will boil over.

Apart from those ructions, inflation and the highcost of living are of daily concern to China?s workers.

Over the last two months inflation in particularhas grown rapidly, and violence by the state isbeing used to deter violence on the part of thecitizenry, according to Mr. Ma. The ?Strike Hard"campaign exemplifies this mindset, he says, andwith it the regime seeks to tighten control for at least the next seven months.

Dr. Showing Young, an Associate Professor of theDepartment of Business Administration at NationalSun Yat-Sen University in Taiwan, also said thatout-of-control inflation will eventually hitChina and force low-income Chinese workers torevolt. With the proliferation of cheap moderncommunication technologies, the regime will findit increasing difficult to suppress Chineseworkers from organizing protests and strikes, Mr. Young said.

Both Messrs. Ma and Young warned that usingviolence to maintain stability may eventually backfire.

Professor Guo Yuhua of the Sociology Departmentat Beijing University feels similarly, and saysshe is furious with local governments suppressingstriking workers. She told Asia Weekly that it?stime to reexamine the notion of stability.

"The regime thinks suppression can solveproblems, yet only by protecting people?s rightscan stability be maintained," Prof. Guo said.

Prof. Guo also said that since the ChineseCommunist Party was built on the worker andpeasant class, if the regime does not handle thestrikes well the ruling party may further erode its popular legitimacy.

Meanwhile, strikes have continued into June, atDenso Corp., the Toyota supplier in Guangzhou onJune 21; Toyoda Gosei in Tianjing on June 17; andHonda Lock in Zhongshan, Guangdong Province on June 9, among others.

The Chinese labor unrest has also been noticedamong union officials in the U.S. According to aJune 14 Reuters report the AFL-CIO, America?slargest labor union, is considering asking theObama administration to investigate whether Chinagains an unfair trade advantage by denying workers' rights.