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Peering in from the outside or through the looking glass at what’s going down on the other side is always a distortion of reality. We sit here in the west looking at the development, the changes and the progress of China and then the stark reality kicks in. Yes, China got capitalist. It got controlled neo-liberalist (if that can ever exist). They have tried anyhow to make it as much. But, along with that opening up came the strike force of the labor market. Unhappy workers, the masses tired of drudging day-in and day-out to the factories and donning their uniforms to go down the coal mines to fuel the burners blazing away under Beijing. In March alone, according to China Labor Bulletin (based in Hong Kong) there were no fewer than 119 strikes that took place in the country.
119 strikes might not seem like a lot given the scope and the demography of the country; but, when was the last time you heard of over a hundred strikes in the country you are sitting in? Even the French couldn’t top that one; and they are renowned for downing tools and taking to the streets. There are tons of strikes that they like to do: sit-ins, by rota, partial, sympathy, wild-cat strikes, go-slow or work-to-rule. Call it what you will. The Chinese are now doing it and following suit.
Although there are no official government statistics, the labor-rights group in Hong Kong is just about the only thing we might be able to rely on. There’s no wonder that the strikes are taking place. The workforce has shrunk by 920 million (National Bureau of Statistics) since 2012. The one-child policy has meant that the active population has taken a beating and been weaned off the multitude of workers that the factories had to make do with less. Less is more? Hardly, they are paying the price of all of that today. Parents are also not prepared to allow their only child to work their hind legs off in some factory and they have looked for better alternatives to factory drudge.
• Factories had to respond to that hole and to attract the workers back to the factories.
• Factory workers have had an increase that we haven’t ever seen in the West.
• It took us hundreds of years to get what they got.
• Since 2005, the official minimum wage in China has increased to 1, 3000 Yuan, or $210.
• Wages have increased by 80% since the financial crisis hit. They have tripled since 2005.
• The factories had to also provide perks. Yes, the Chinese workers wanted better.
• They didn’t want ‘less is more’, they wanted just MOAR.
• They got libraries and day-nurseries, they got sports facilities.
• They got a 2008 law that protected their severance pay.
• They got the 2011-social insurance law that strengthened the necessity for their employers to contribute on their behalf.
• They are nearly there to getting collective bargaining rules.
• Soon, China will be the workers’ paradise.
• The idea is that wildcat strikes will be a thing of the past in China if the workers get collective bargaining.
Strikers are not protected by the law and there is no right to strike. When, it turns out of the factory gates and ends up on the streets, those striking workers can be arrested (in theory) and thrown in prison. But, they won’t be, the workers have too much power since they are so few and far between today to do anything to them. Even China has succumbed to the age-old laws of supply and demand that regulate the market.
A shoe factory in Dongguan has been on strike for the past ten days now. Wal-Mart is dealing with a strike at one of its stores (closed since last month) and is still sitting round the negotiating table talking things out.
The workers will change the face of the market in China. China Labor Bulletin believes that the majority of the cases involving strikes could have been resolved beforehand if the management had communicated better. It looks like managers in China are going to have to listen, talk and answer to workers in the future in China. The supply of workforce is not suddenly going to increase and can only shift the power to the workers’ side in the coming months and years even more.
Any country that goes through its industrial revolution ends up with striking workers on their hands that are tired of not being paid more, of not being better looked after and that aren’t prepared to bow their heads in silence. And look! It still hasn’t finished. Here’s just one example:
• In the UK in 2013, 250, 000 working days were lost due to industrial action.
• The highest reached 1.4 million lost working days in 2011.
• The majority were in the public sector and defense industrial group (60% of the days lost).
Originally posted: China Wanted Capitalism But it Also Got Strikes [7]
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