[Marxism] Growing worker restiveness in China

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

In China, Workers Turn Tough
Spate of Walkouts May Signal New Era

By Edward Cody
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, November 27, 2004; Page A01

DONGGUAN, China -- Heralded by an unprecedented series of walkouts, the
first stirrings of unrest have emerged among the millions of youthful
migrant workers who supply seemingly inexhaustible cheap labor for the
vast expanse of factories in China's booming Pearl River Delta.

The signs of newly assertive Chinese workers have jolted foreign and
Chinese factory owners, who for the last two decades have churned out
everything from Nikes to baby dolls with unbeatably low production
costs. Some have concluded that the raw era in which rootless Chinese
villagers would accept whatever job they could get may be drawing to a
close, raising questions about China's long-term future as world
headquarters for low-paid outsourcing.

Workers in Dongguan in China's booming Pearl River Delta have become
less willing to passively accept low pay. (Ricky Wong -- Krt)

"One dollar, two dollars, it used to be they didn't care," said Tom
Stackpole, originally from Massachusetts, who is quality control
director here for Skechers USA Inc. and has been involved in shoe
manufacturing in southern China for a decade. "That has passed."

Stella International Ltd., a Taiwanese-owned shoe manufacturer employing
42,000 people in and around Dongguan, faced strikes this spring that
turned violent. At one point, more than 500 rampaging workers sacked
company facilities and severely injured a Stella executive, leading
hundreds of police to enter the factory and round up ringleaders.

"We never had anything like that before," said Jack Chiang, Stella's
chief executive.

Chiang suggested that several factors have contributed to the shift in
attitude. On the one hand, he acknowledged, assembly-line wages have not
risen in recent years nearly as fast as the cost of living. On the
other, image-conscious U.S. retailers who buy Dongguan's shoes have
demanded better treatment and human rights counseling for the workers,
encouraging them to step up and make demands for change.

Finally, Chiang added, broader general freedoms in the country have
reduced the Chinese people's traditional fear of authority, and not just
among factory workers. Protests by farmers and others, many of them
violent, have broken out with increasing frequency across the country in
recent months.

The growing assertiveness of factory workers has posed a particular
political problem for the governing Communist Party, which ideologically
should champion poor laborers struggling against capitalist managers.
But local governments have become shareholders in many of the factories,
steering officials toward the management side of labor relations.

"The government is the largest boss in the area," said Liu Kaiming, a
labor analyst and director of the Institute of Contemporary Observation
in nearby Shenzhen.

Apparently eager to show solidarity with restless workers, the
government-run All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the only legal
union in the country, recently issued a reminder that the law requires
foreign as well as Chinese companies to accept federation branches
wherever workers demand it. The official federation announced Thursday
that Wal-Mart, the American merchandizing giant, had agreed to allow
unions in its factories in China.

full: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A15464-2004Nov26.html

--
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org


_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism