The Picture of Labor Movement in China

Hui XuGlobal Labor UniversityKassel UniversityBerlin School of Economics and Law

The experience as a labor activist

• Focusing on peasant workers in construction, garment, and IT sector by working in labor NGOs, labor research center in university

• Investing labor conditions by finding jobs in three Foxconn factories

• Campaigning against Foxconn and Apple

What is happening in China

• The strike in Honda in 2010 for increasing wages， 2000 workers joined, a strike wave

• The strike in Yue Yuan in 2014 for social insurance, about 40,000 workers involved

• More than 2,000 strikes from 2011 to 2014, more than 1,200 strikes until now in 2015

• Strike is not legalized in Chinese Constitution

The reactions to these strikes

• Government: maintaining stability, legislating the collective contract regulations

• Capital: chambers of commerce in Hong Kong advertising against collective contract regulations, asking for suspense.

• Trade Union: organizing a particular group dealing with labor disputes, opening up a website collecting workers appeals, promoting the democratic election in factory trade union.

Chines Trade Union

• The dual identities of official trade union: the workers’ organization, a part of state apparatus,avoiding workers’ collective actions, suppressing independent workers’ organizations.

• Workshop trade union: being controlled by the boss or manager, prioritizing the production and efficiency, not fighting for workers’ interests

Labor NGOs in China

• Emerging in 1990’s, grassroots, responding workers’ demands quickly

• Community service and legal aid: visiting injury workers in hospital,culture and entertainment activities, law training and citizen representation in the court.

• Labor movement-type NGO: intervening strikes, guiding collective bargaining.

International Solidarity

• Factories’ relocation in South-East Asia causes strikes for economic compensation

• Transnational Corporations’ violation of labor rights

• Chinese investments in Africa, i.e. construction industry

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