Even though a strike at a Honda factory and suicides at Foxconn garnered world wide attention and led to significant pay increases, at this remove, the hubub about them seemed overdone (“China faces wave of strikes after Foxconn pay rise“). China is still very much an authoritarian country, the Honda strike was approved officially, and using suicides as a route to get wage increases is not a model that will get widespread traction. Perhaps more important, both companies were foreign, which also raises the question of whether one can generalize from these cases.
The New York Times offers the other side of the coin: the futility of labor action against entities near and dear to the officialdom. One would have to imagine that state-owned banks hold a particularly favored position. Former bank staff, typically middle aged, fired in downsizing efforts, are virtually unemployable in China. Over the last two years, these workers have found their protests met with fierce opposition. From the New York Times:
….these unlikely agitators — conservatively attired but fiercely determined — have staged… public protests in Beijing and provincial cities. They have stormed branch offices to mount sit-ins. A few of the more foolhardy have met at Tiananmen Square to distribute fliers before plainclothes police officers snatched them away…
According to one organizer, a scrappy former bank teller named Wu Lijuan, there are at least 70,000 people seeking to regain their old jobs or receive monetary compensation, a sizable wedge of the 400,000 who were laid off during a decade-long purge….
For a government determined to maintain social harmony, the protests and petitioning are vexing. Compared with farmers angry over seized land or retired soldiers seeking fatter pensions, the bank workers — educated, organized and knowledgeable about the Internet — are better equipped to outsmart the public security agents constantly on their trail.
“What the government fears most are people capable of organizing, and the bank workers have discovered their power,” said Renee Xia, international director of Chinese Human Rights Defenders. “The sad thing is that they’re not going to succeed because the more organized you are, the more harsh the government’s reaction.”
Protest organizers are often thrown in “black jails” — extrajudicial holding pens — where they are sometimes beaten before local police officers arrive to take them back home. The recalcitrant and unrepentant sometimes end up in labor camps, where they can spend up to three years without being prosecuted for a crime….
Even if their numbers are smaller, the former bank employees are not unlike the millions of factory workers shed during the effort to restructure inefficient state-owned enterprises in the late 1990s. In the years that followed, they, too, clamored for redress but were eventually silenced.
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Geez… who would have thought suicide would be a reasonable option to protest wage freezes. Guess it is a sort of self correcting behavior.
The suicide rate at Foxconn is inline with the avg suicide rate in China.
And how does the suicide rate affect the price of eggs? It doesn’t, but the price of everything else sure seems to be going up.
No worries, Foxxconn is moving inland for cheaper labor and hiring ‘15,000 ‘Stable-minded’ Workers. link
Seems the workers in Guagzhou are just getting too ‘lazy’…
“Protest organizers are often thrown in “black jails” — extrajudicial holding pens — where they are sometimes beaten before local police officers arrive to take them back home. The recalcitrant and unrepentant sometimes end up in labor camps, where they can spend up to three years without being prosecuted for a crime…”
What? Innocent people being thrown in “black jails”, beaten or even possibly tortured, and kept in incarceration for years without being charged for a crime? What ungodly nation would do such a thing?!? Thank GOD I live in the USA….
At least in China they get put to work.
The story behind the story …
When the New York Slimes is HARD selling; demoralizing, you can’t beat the man, just roll over and die, fear mongering futility, you know they are worried …
“A few of the more foolhardy”,
“plainclothes police officers snatched them away”,
“The sad thing is that they’re not going to succeed because the more organized you are, the more harsh the government’s reaction.”
“Protest organizers are often thrown in “black jails” — extrajudicial holding pens — where they are sometimes beaten before local police officers arrive to take them back home. The recalcitrant and unrepentant sometimes end up in labor camps, where they can spend up to three years without being prosecuted for a crime….”
“Even if their numbers are smaller, the former bank employees are not unlike the millions of factory workers shed during the effort to restructure inefficient state-owned enterprises in the late 1990s. In the years that followed, they, too, clamored for redress but were eventually silenced.”
Orchestrating the intentional global perpetual conflict is a tricky and dangerous business. They should be worried! There are volcanoes of pent up anger every where.
History shows that the deceptions and futility are always overcome and the wealthy ruling elite and their lap dogs are always swept away, Those at the New York Slimes, mouthpiece of the man, should be worried …
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_YYMeAu4i7gA/SssFZe4Z0_I/AAAAAAAAFxs/Fz_d31AEETM/s1600-h/mussolini-dead-mistress-milan-may-1945.jpg
Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.
“History shows…”
Unfortunately, in the long run we’re all dead.
You should write for the New York Slimes.
Deception is the strongest political force on the planet.
omygod
The NY Times has been China-bashing for a LONG time and year after year the Chinese economy has been steadily improving and life for the great majority of Chinese people has improved dramatically. If you believe what you read in the Times, life in China should be far worse by now than life in India, where “human rights” are apparently more diligently respected and “democracy” rules. The hard facts reveal exactly the opposite. India was, is, and probably always will be a disaster. China, whose past history of grinding poverty is very similar to that of India, is moving forward.
Current conditions in China look a lot like conditions in the USA when all workers were relentlessly exploited and the labor movement was just getting started. What we should be doing now is encouraging the development of a labor movement in China, instead of acting as though this or any country is capable of righting all wrongs instantaneously.
But, Victor, it’s just that authoritarian ability to do some things instantly that has Tom Friedman so in love with the chinese gov’t!
Frankly, he comes off a bit like someone spouting shameful praise of Mussolini in the late 20’s.
Dear Yves
this story is 2 weeks old, it was published by Andy Robinson 3 weeks ago in La Vanguardia in Barcelona, Spain, but it was more thorough
it pointed out that none of the wild strikes had visible faces or leaders
it pointed out, that foreign corporations were let alone to deal with it
it hinted, that officials were in simpathy with strikers along with the mood in Zhong Guo that proffits are not evenly split with workforce
Whoever wants to make a political side of it arise, is wrong; its just a question of money, and a fair one
As a downsized banker of a certain age in the US I empathize with that generation of workers in China who are probably more f***ed than their US counterparts.
That decade long purge in China sounds eerily similar to the purge of anyone over 40 that’s been going on in the US for the last 20+years.
Perhaps the absolute count in China is higher, but I wonder how the % of unemployred ‘discouraged’ workers in that age bracket in the us compares.
So, how about the Ex bank teller who protested outside his former bank wearing his girlfriends clothes. He was hired by another branch who promptly fired him when he arrived for work in a suit. He was hired again when the next day he arrived dressed as the cigarette girl.
Perception is the …