China

The new year has brought renewed workers’ struggles in many industries in China. Workers at the Shanghai Shinmei Electric Company “boss-napped” their managers on Saturday 26 January, holding them hostage as part of a fight against a company policy which strictly times workers’ toilet breaks. The managers were only released after 300 policemen arrived at the plant. 1,000 workers at Jiangxi Xin Hai Yang Precision Components in Fengcheng, Jiangxi Province struck on 10 January, demanding pay increases. They demonstrated and blocked a road near the factory; police used water cannons and pepper...

Back in the 1930s, a certain breed of starry-eyed European leftist was eager to make the case that the USSR somehow represented “a new civilisation”. Proof of the superiority of Stalin’s economic policies, they insisted, was to be found in continued expansion, even at a time when western capitalism was deeply mired in depression. The techniques by which this was achieved could therefore felicitously be overlooked in polite Fabian circles. Fast forward to now and you find several writers ready to take a parallel stance in the case of China, and Loretta Napoleoni is a prime example. Maonomics...

One in five of the world’s populace will soon have new leaders for a decade’s term. This will be delivered via the 18th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), an assembly of the bureaucracy so regulated that all that China’s people and the rest of the world will be presented with is a well-orchestrated display of unified power. At the time of writing this article, who the new leaders are has yet to be formally announced, but behind the scene faction fights and scraps between the powerful elite in the Party have already been settled for the sake of unity for survival. The current Vice...

Despite becoming the favourite hunting-ground of global corporations greedy for cheap labour stripped of rights, China still claims to be “communist” or “socialist”. So it has a good health service? Better, surely, than shamelessly neo-liberal Britain? The Chinese people don’t think so. So great is their frustration that in 2010 (the latest year with official figures) there were 17,000 protests or attacks directed against doctors or hospitals in China. In a recent case, Wang Hao, a trainee doctor at a hospital in northern China, was stabbed and killed by a 17-year-old whom he had never even...

Three thousand workers at a Foxconn plant in Zhengzhou, China, struck on Friday 5 October. Foxconn is an electronics manufacturer which produces Apple iPhones and iPods. The immediate catalyst for the strike was an increase in quality control inspections and increasing demands from management for higher-quality production without any additional training. Foxconn have also been forcing workers to work through holidays. WalMart strikes Workers in WalMart stores in California struck on 4 October, marking the first shop-floor strike in the company’s 50-year history. Grievances include unilateral...

Mass protests in Portugal have forced the right-wing government to back off from one of its plans for meeting debt bail-out conditions. The government wanted to increase workers’ social security contributions by 7% and cut bosses’ contributions by 5.75%. The effect would be a 7% cut in net pay, mostly to the benefit of the bosses. On 24 September prime minister Pedro Passos Coelho said he would abandon the plan. South Africa The miners’ strike in Marikana has ended with striking workers accepting a 22% pay increase. The dispute – during which 34 miners were massacred by police – was a product...

The Hong Kong based NGO China Labour Bulletin (CLB) was set up in 1994. Its founder, a former railway worker, helped establish - during the 1989 Tiananmen Square revolutionary uprising - the Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation. This was China’s first, but short-lived, independent trade union. In March this year CLB produced a report assessing the development of the workers’ movement in China during the first decade of the twenty-first century. This article summarises the appraisal made in this report . Han Dongfang, founder of the CLB, speaking in Tiananmen Square 1989 as a representative...

Thousands of activists marched in Hong Kong to question official reports of the death of Li Wangyang, a veteran of the Tiananmen Square democracy uprising who was freed last year after spending 22 years in jail for his role in the 1989 protests. He was found dead in his hospital room after apparently having hanged himself. But supporters, friends, and relatives claim that, as Li was extremely unwell, it is unlikely he would have been able to carry out the suicide. They also say that to commit suicide without leaving a note is entirely contrary to his character. Li’s family have also criticised...

February saw nearly 30 industrial disputes across China, according to labour movement NGO China Labour Bulletin (CLB). The strikes took place across a wide range of industries around a range of demands focusing on pay, hours, terms and conditions. Four of the disputes centres on management plans to relocate workplaces or unreasonable employee deployment. One strike took place when workers previously employed by German manufacturer Putzmeister demanded a higher compensation package after the company was sold to Sany Heavy Industries (the largest Sino-German business transaction in history)...

In December 2011, after a meeting of 131 activists, a new party was formed in Hong Kong, China. Activists in several trade unions have been part of the new initiative. Eleven of the 20-strong committee are connected to the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions. Lee Cheuk-yan was elected chairman unopposed and was one of the prime motivators of the new party. Lee Cheuk-yan is currently an elected member of the Legislative Council of Hong Kong and is currently General Secretary of the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions. Since its foundation it now has three elected members of the...