China

In 2018, Jasic Technology dismissed workers for trying to organise their own trade union, and more than 40 workers were arrested and accused of “gathering a crowd to disturb social order”. Since then, many labour activists and supporters have been prosecuted and imprisoned on spurious charges, while the exact whereabouts of other workers implicated in the protests at the Jasic factory remain unknown. It is feared that the authorities have used criminal prosecutions, harassment and surveillance to instill fear and prevent those affected or their families from speaking out.
More precisely, Fu Changguo, staff member of a workers’ centre, Dagongzhe, has been detained since August 2018 and charged with “gathering a crowd to disrupt social order”. His whereabouts remain unknown.
Workers’ leaders Mi Jiuping, Yu Juncong, and Liu Penghua were prosecuted sometime in 2020 after their criminal arrests on 3 September 2018. They have been sentenced to a year and a half jail time and two years of probation.
Worker activists Zheng Shiyou and Liang Xiaogang, who were arrested respectively on 11 November 2018 and 9 November 2018, were prosecuted sometime in 2020 on charges of subversion of state power.
Worker Li Zhan, who was taken away by the police on 27 July 2018 when the Jasic worker leaders demanded to return to work, was put under criminal arrest on 3 September 2018. Li was prosecuted sometime in 2020 and has been sentenced to one year and a half in prison and two years of probation. The three workers remain unreachable, and no further information on the trials could be accessed or provided.
Yang Zhengjun, Ke Chengbing, and Wei Zhili, the editors of iLabour who were in pre-trial detention since 27 December 2019, were prosecuted in Shenzhen in May 2020. They were convicted of the criminal offence of “picking up a quarrel and creating troubles” and have received a jail sentence of 18 months. The three activists have not been able to resume their labour work, and the online labour platform, iLabour, has been closed down.
He Pengchao, the founder of Qingying Dreamworks Social Work Centre, who was arrested on 9 November 2018 for “inciting subversion of state power”, was prosecuted sometime in 2020 and sentenced to three years’ imprisonment.
In the past two years, the government has exerted tremendous pressure and intimidation on the student activists and their families. The students have faced police arrest, interrogation and intimidation by the national security authorities as well as disciplinary action or termination by the university authorities. Leaders were pressured into forced confessions in which they confessed to having been brainwashed and instructed by labour radicals. These confessions were video recorded and used to intimidate other students. Yan Zihao, a Renmin University student arrested on 24 July 2018 for supporting Jasic workers, and again on 21 January 2019 for sharing videos of forced confessions by the leading student activists, was later expelled by the university.

On 25 February, “Mengzhu”, a well-known food delivery worker activist, was detained by Beijing police in a raid on his apartment.
Mengzhu – whose real name is Chen Guojiang – was charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, a catch-all category often used against activists in China.
Chen was leader of the Delivery Riders Alliance, which he founded in 2019. He published short videos about delivery workers’ daily work experiences, calling on them to build solidarity and fight unjust conditions. He also set up chat groups on the Chinese social media app WeChat, reaching about 15,000 delivery workers. A channel on the app provides free legal consultations and other assistance to delivery workers, including mediating disputes, motorbike repairs, and negotiating with insurance companies.
The Delivery Riders Alliance developed into a union-like organisation for food delivery workers in Beijing and had connections with delivery workers in other cities.
Shortly before his arrest, Chen had published a video about a bonus scam by Ele.me, owned by Alibaba, China’s biggest e-commerce company. It was watched by millions and provoked great public criticism against Ele.me.
Media reports of Chen’s detention were blocked or deleted by state censors. Chinese internet activists broadcast an open letter by Chen’s father seeking assistance with legal fees and donated more than 120,000 yuan (US$18,350). On 16 March, Chen’s WeChat channel, where the open letter had been posted, was permanently banned.
Online discussion of Chen’s case was also censored and shut down by the police. Lawyers and students in contact with Chen’s family were investigated and harassed.
Chen’s case illustrates the determination of the Chinese government to prevent the development of any independent worker movements. It follows a typical pattern: often when protests arise, some concessions will be granted while leaders are arrested and the movement is dispersed.

The Chinese government continues to wrongfully use Articles 75, 290, 293 of the PRC Criminal Code to criminally arrest and detain, as well as impose residential surveillance on, labour activists and supporting groups at a designated place related to the labour dispute labour dispute See industrial dispute in Jasic Technologies, where four workers were sacked and detained by the public security for forming a grassroots trade union in 2018. Forty-eight workers and labour activists related to the dispute are believed to be under restriction by the authorities to enable independent verification of their status and whereabouts. More labour activists not directly involved in the Jasic dispute were believed to have been arrested for their labour activism.

Chinese labour activist Chen Weixiang and two others who were arrested in Guangzhou at the end of 2019 were released after half a month of administrative detention and went home to their friends and family. Chen Weixiang posted on Facebook to thank the public for their solidarity.

Chen Weixiang has been working on labour rights in China and opened a public account on WeChat called “Heart Sanitation”. He is concerned with such issues as low salary and unreasonable contracts among sanitation workers. On 17 December 2019, Chen Weixiang, a volunteer surnamed Lu and a Chinese student surnamed Zhang who is pursuing postgraduate studies in Taiwan and conducting research for a thesis in Guangzhou, were arrested in their residence by a dozen uniformed and plain-clothed police officers and were unreachable afterwards. There were then rumours that the three were arrested for “picking quarrels and provoking troubles” and detained for 15 days from 18 December onwards. He was finally released and picked up by his family. The exact reasons for Chen’s arrest remain unknown.

On 20 March 2019 Wei Zhili, the editor of a China labour rights website, iLabour.net, was detained by authorities in Guangzhou. Police told his parents that their son was “brainwashed” into helping workers and that they were taking him away to “educate” him.  The police searched Wei’s parents’ house, where he was staying, and confiscated his laptop and cell phone. Wei’s colleague, Ke Chengbing, was also taken into police custody. Yang Zhengjun, editor-in-chief of the iLabour news site, had been in police detention since January.

The journalists had been following the struggle of silicosis workers from Hunan Province suffering from pneumoconiosis, the most serious and common occupational disease in China, attentively. Each time the silicosis workers came to protest in Shenzhen, they would

spread the news through their magazine. The Chinese government considers such support as “anti-communist party, anti-revolutionary”.

A week later, on 27 March, with the two still in detention, a group of about 100 workers from Hunan suffering from pneumoconiosis were stopped by local authorities at the local train station in Sangzhi from travelling to Shenzhen to show their solidarity for Wei Zhili. On 21 April some 100 workers suffering from the work-related disease signed a petition demanding the release of three prominent activists, which they published online.

The two activists were moved on 20 April to “residential surveillance at a designated location” (RSDL), a form of detention that allows authorities to hold people for serious crimes, such as endangering national security. Wei’s wife Zheng Churan, a prominent feminist activist, expressed concern that they were no longer in police custody and their whereabouts were unknown. “Anything can happen to them".

In late August, police gave all three families written notices that the three had been formally arrested on “picking quarrels” charges. 

The wife of prominent labour activist labour activist Wu Guijun, who had been in detention since 20 January 2019, was held by police for questioning on 15 March 2019, in a clear attempt at harassment and intimidation. Two days earlier Zhou Yuzhi had published an open letter criticising her husband’s arrest as a violation of basic labour rights and civil rights, and protesting at the refusal to grant him permission to see his lawyer.

Zhou had come home from work to find seven men waiting for her and a police car nearby. She was taken to the police station and questioned for over two hours. The police mainly asked about the open letter she had published on her Wechat feed on 13 March 2019. They particularly wanted to know if her letter was composed by a lawyer, and the details of her educational background to test if it was written by other people. She insisted the letter was not written by others, and rejected their claims that Wu’s lawyer was not doing a good job, pointing out that it was the police who had prevented him from seeing his lawyer, and who refused to give her any information about his situation. The police let her go home after questioning her.

On 20 January 2019, five labour activists – Zhang Zhiru, Jian Hui, Song Jiahui, Wu Guijun and He Yuancheng – were arrested by Shenzhen Police in Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Changsha. Four of the five were refused permission to meet with their lawyers, although He Yuancheng was able to meet his lawyer. Their families, who had hired the lawyers for them, reported that they were continuously harassed by the authorities. On 5 March 2019, it was confirmed that all five of them were formally arrested on charges of “gathering a crowd to disturb social order”, and they were likely to face lengthy imprisonments.

The move was considered part of the government’s crackdown on increasing labour unrest, targeting some of the country’s most effective activists.

Wu Guijun and Zhang Zhiru were considered the two most prominent and effective labour activists in Shenzhen over the previous five years. After organising organising The process of forming or joining a trade union, or inducing other workers to form or join one. workers at Hong Kong-owned furniture maker Diweixin in Shenzhen in 2013, Wu Guijun was detained for more than a year before being released without charge in June 2014. Following his release he continued to help workers as an independent activist.

Zhang Zhiru became a prominent activist after working on construction sites and assembly lines and founded the Chunfeng Labour Dispute labour dispute See industrial dispute Service Centre in 2007, which was involved in numerous labour disputes during the 2010s and guided thousands of workers through collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
with their employers. Jian Hui also worked at Chunfeng, while He Yuancheng was the former editor of the Collective Bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
Forum, and Song Jiahui, formerly a worker at the Lide Shoe factory in Guangzhou, was elected worker representative in arguably the most successful collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
case in the recent history of the workers’ movement in China.

On 29 January 2019, the Jasic Workers Support Group (JWSG) released an audio clip and transcript of a video showing detained members of the JWSG supposedly “confessing”. The Chinese government had reportedly been forcing student activists to watch it.

The video referred to events that began in July 2018 when workers demanding the establishment of a trade union at the Jasic Technology factory in Shenzhen were arrested. A wave of protests followed, to which the authorities responded with a crackdown on labour activism. More than 40 workers and their supporters were detained in relation to the Jasic dispute, while the student and civil society groups supporting the Jasic workers were continually harassed by the authorities. By the time of the video’s release, dozens of workers, students, trade unionists and civil society activists were still in detention.

According to the video transcripts, Gu Jiayue, Zheng Yongming, Shen Mengyu and Yue Xin were filmed to confess in front of the camera. They stated that they had taken collective action to force the government and the employer to agree or give in to workers’ demands, which led to a severely negative impact on state security. They “admitted” that they were ignorant about China, had put “incorrect” information online and misled an uninformed public to take part in protests, without knowing all the “facts” themselves. They also “acknowledged” that their actions helped “foreign forces with their own agenda” to defame China, which violated their original intention to help workers safeguard their rights.

As the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) pointed out, the genuineness of such “confessions” remains questionable, particularly given the language used. Furthermore, in the video, workers’ collective action is repeatedly emphasised as a threat to state security and considered to be illegal.

Another seven university students or graduates were detained as suppression of those involved in the JASIC workers struggle continued.
On 21 January 2019, Peking University students Li Ziyi, Ma Shize, Zhang Ziwei, graduate Li Jiahao and Renmin University of China student Yian Zihao were taken away by the police. Peking University student Sun Jiayian and graduate Huan Yu were also taken away by unknown persons on the same day. At the end of January 2019 their whereabouts were still unknown. Their arrests were believed to be related to various articles posted on the internet about students being forced to watch the “confession videos” given by the detained members of the Jasic Workers Support Group. The articles alleged such confessions were forced by the government.
One of the disappeared students, Zhang Ziwei, sent out repeated messages on social media just before his disappearance saying that he was being hunted down by government officials.
The four students from Peking University had been warned prior to their arrest by the university management and the police to stay at home during the Lunar New Year holidays and report their whereabouts to officials regularly. Li Jiahao was one of the Jasic supporters temporarily detained during the police raid on 24 August 2018.

Many workers were hurt when police used excessive force to break up their protest to demand compensation. Two hundred workers from OPD Technology in Shenzhen held two days of strikes beginning on 6 January to protest against the company’s refusal to provide employees with compensation after it announced that it was relocating operations to another city.
The OPD Technology plant was being transferred to Qingxi, part of the city of Dongguan in Guangdong province, more than 70 kilometres away. The government had ordered the relocation to facilitate the creation of a new highway.
Under Shenzhen rules, companies that transfer factories out of the city are required to pay workers compensation, calculated by the length of each workers’ employment. OPD Technology was trying to relocate without any discussion with workers or compensation.
The police intervened on 8 January, dispersing the protestors and leaving many injured. The industrial action industrial action Any form of action taken by a group of workers, a union or an employer during an industrial dispute to gain concessions from the other party, e.g. a strike, go-slow or an overtime ban, or a lockout on the part of the employer. ended after the company, backed by the local government, declared that it would pay just 40 per cent of the legally required compensation.

Three colleagues of worker activist Shen Meng-yu, a prominent supporter of the Jasic workers’ attempts to set up an independent trade union, were detained and questioned by police on 9 November 2018. Li Yuan-zhu, Dai Hui-fang and Wang Gui-xia were arrested for no apparent reason. During the detention, the police interrogated and pressured them into giving testimony against Shen Meng-yu. According the police, there was “proof” that Shen Meng-yu accepted overseas funds to “stir up workers” in the factory. The purpose of arresting the three workers, it appeared, was to get them to give substance to this story.
Dai Hui-fang claimed the police used gruelling interrogation tactics during detention. Li Yuan-zhu said the police did not allow him to go to sleep for over 30 hours, tore his clothes and kicked his legs. Eventually, Li Yuan-zhu was forced to write a “letter of guarantee” that was critical of Shen Meng-yu. The three workers reported their abusive treatment to the Jasic Workers Solidarity Group after they were released.
Li Yuan-zhu shared the story on social media on 13 November of how the police mistreated him and extorted a “confession” from him using torture. He quickly faced retaliation by his employer, the police and the local ACFTU branch. He was dismissed by his employer on 22 November. When he looked for assistance from the ACFTU enterprise union enterprise union A union whose membership is limited to workers in one particular enterprise. Sometimes called a company union, but should not be confused with a yellow union. , they did nothing to help him. His employer later called the police, who forcefully took him to the police station.

The Jasic Workers Support Group (JWSG) reported that on 9 November 2018 two grassroots staff members of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) were arrested for assisting the Jasic workers to set up a union according to the law. The event triggered the Jasic labour dispute labour dispute See industrial dispute . After the 17^th General Assembly of the ACFTU in October, staff members of grassroots unions became one of the targets of the crackdown.
The two were arrested on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” on 9 November. One of them was Zhou Li-ping, who was said to have assisted the Jasic workers in preparing their application to set up a union.
According to the JWSG, Zhou Li-ping was one of the few ACFTU staff who was sympathetic to the workers. The other staff member arrested was Li Ao, who also helped the Jasic workers.
A lawyer, Huang Sha, who was representing workers and labour activists connected with the Jasic Technology dispute, was also detained. The JWSG reported that he was taken away from his home in Putian, Shenzhen, on the evening of 30 November.

On 7 November 2018, police in Shenzen used pepper spray on a group of protesters suffering from the occupational disease pneumoconiosis, also known as black lung disease. In a video circulating on Chinese social media, some of the workers, already debilitated by the fatal illness, were seen falling to the ground, as they could not breathe. In a separate video, a worker’s hand was seen bleeding as a colleague off camera condemned the use of force against them.
Around 200 pneumoconiosis workers and family members from Leiyang, Sangzhi and Milu in the Hunan province had arrived in Shenzhen on 5 November and gathered at the local offices of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security (MOHRSS).
The workers had been seeking compensation since 2009. The complication was that workers in China’s construction sector often have no labour contracts, and it was therefore difficult for them to prove they were employed in Shenzhen. The workers presented a detailed three-stage occupational disease severity scale with corresponding compensation, with an emphasis on paying the worker as soon as pneumoconiosis is diagnosed, without needing to establish a prior employment relationship.
Pneumoconiosis is the most prevalent occupational disease in China, but due to complicated bureaucratic procedures and employer influence, it is notoriously difficult for workers to get an official diagnosis of occupational disease.
To add insult to injury, the workers found that hotels nearby had been instructed not to take their bookings and their ID cards seemed to be on a blacklist. They were able to meet ministry representatives, but officials insisted it was essential to establish labour relations before paying workers compensation as stipulated by insurance regulations; otherwise, workers are only entitled to receive relief handouts. No agreement was reached, and the workers vowed to continue their protest, the China Labour Bulletin reported.

Thirty people – 23 men and seven women, including workers from the Jasic Technology factory, workers from other factories and a student – were placed under criminal detention on charges of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” on 27 July 2018 by Yanziling Police Station in the Pingshan district of Shenzhen, southern China.
News of the dismissal of two union organisers at the Jasic factory earlier in the month and the beating up of the two and their supporters had quickly attracted widespread attention on Chinese social media. Many people had come out to support the workers, including student groups from leading Chinese universities. The workers had been trying to form their own union since May, in response to low wages, the company’s underpayment of social insurance and housing fund contributions and other attacks on living standards. The company, however, had meanwhile set up its own “union”, or worker representatives’ committee.
Other protesters were briefly detained and questioned by the police after they demonstrated outside the police station to support the detained individuals.
The events followed a protest three days earlier when a group of workers from the factory gathered outside the gates demanding the reinstatement of their sacked colleagues.
Several of the detainees were released in early August, but 14 of them remained in custody, while support for their cause steadily grew.
Four were formally charged on 3 September with “gathering a crowd to disrupt public order”. Three of the detained, Yu Juncong, Mi Jiuping and Liu Penghua, were workers who had actively sought to set up a trade union at the Jasic factory, while Li Zhan was a former Jasic worker who supported their cause. At that time 11 of those arrested were still either in police custody or under house arrest.

More than 50 student activists, who were supporting workers dismissed for trying to set up a trade union at Jasic Technology in Shenzhen, were detained in an early morning police raid on their rented accommodation in the nearby city of Huizhou on 24 August 2018.
Those detained included Lan Zhiwei, Yu Kailong and Yu Weiye, three workers who had been released on bail from an earlier mass arrest, as well as student activists Yue Xin, Zhan Zhenzhen and Feng Ge from Beijing University, and several other students from Renmin University and Nanjing University.
Two workers’ representatives and Gu Jiayue, a student who had approached the All-China Federation of Trade Unions and All-China Women’s Federation about the Jasic workers’ case, were also reported to have been arrested.
After being detained, the students were released separately. Their phones and computers were seized and they were told they would be placed under surveillance.

On 11 August 2018, Shen Mengyu, a worker activist, was seized while eating dinner with her father by three unidentified men believed to be from China’s security forces and forcibly bundled into an unmarked car. Another activist, Xiao Hu, was detained at around the same time. Both were prominent supporters of the workers at the Jasic Technology factory who had been trying to establish an independent workers’ union.

Shen Mengyu had been one of the authors of an open letter recently published that was highly critical of the owner of Jasic Technology and the personnel manager. The police refused to investigate her disappearance and dismissed it as a “family dispute”. They claimed that all four surveillance cameras at the site of the abduction were “out of order”.
According to some reports Shen was being detained in a house in Shenzhen, an unofficial detention centre or “black jail”, and kept under 24 hour surveillance. Such methods are a common method of repression in China, according to the “China Worker” website, making it easier for police to keep someone indefinitely, and cut the person off from access to a lawyer, family or media.

On 16 July 2018, Mi Jiuping and Liu Penghua were dismissed by Jasic Technology in Shenzhen, southern China, and then beaten by thugs. The pair were accused by company management of trying to form an “illegal” trade union at Jasic Technology Co Ltd, a privately owned manufacturer of industrial welding equipment.
The workers’ campaign to form an independent union independent union A trade union that is not affiliated to a national union. Can also be a union that is not dominated by an employer.

See yellow union

began in May after working conditions at the factory in Shenzhen’s Pingshan district had reportedly deteriorated to the point where workers said the company was treating them “like slaves”. Management had cheated them out of hundreds of yuan each month by arbitrarily changing their schedules and had underpaid their social insurance and housing fund contributions.
The workers took their grievances to the local Pingshan federation of trade unions office where staff suggested that they formally unionise as a means of resolving their issues with management. Jasic management, however, had already set up their own worker representatives’ committee which excluded the candidates the workers themselves had proposed.
When Mi and Liu tried to enter the plant on 20 July, they were stopped at the gates by security guards and after an altercation erupted, police intervened and a few workers were detained. Colleagues gathered in front of the police station and held a marathon protest over the weekend. All workers were subsequently released.

Police arrested 16 retired teachers on 27 May 2018 during a protest over unpaid performance bonuses in Lu’an city in the Anhui province.
About 200 teachers took part in the demonstration, marching to the municipal government office with banners demanding payment of arrears and better treatment.
Hundreds of police arrived at the scene. Photos and a video on Chinese social media show police officers pulling and shoving individuals as they try to escape arrest, with clear examples of excessive force.
China’s government censors deleted social media posts related to the incident soon after posting, but not before the sight of police officers beating the pensioners had sparked an outcry. The government also reportedly tried to make the teachers sign something saying that all money owing to them had been paid. As a result a further demonstration took place three days later outside a municipal government building – the demonstrators insisting the government had not paid the retired teachers the money it owed them.

All six activists, five of whom had been released in 2017 after more than a year’s detention, are still unable to resume their work despite the recommendations made by the ILO International Labour Organization A tripartite United Nations (UN) agency established in 1919 to promote working and living conditions. The main international body charged with developing and overseeing international labour standards.

See tripartism, ITUC Guide to international trade union rights Committee on Freedom of Association freedom of association The right to form and join the trade union of one’s choosing as well as the right of unions to operate freely and carry out their activities without undue interference.

See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework . Zhu Xiaomei and Zhen Fei Yang have to wear a GPS device and report to the public security. Meng Han, the only activist serving 21 months of imprisonment, was released on 3 September 2017. However, he is still subject to close surveillance from the Public Security Bureau since his release. As a matter of fact, Meng was briefly arrested and detained again on 22 September due to the online publishing of his Prison Notebook, which recorded his involvement in the Lide strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike , the event that led to his subsequent sentence. Until very recently, his personal freedom had been severely restricted by the authorities, as he was under 24-hour surveillance of public security personnel.

Meng, who was diagnosed with hepatitis C while in prison, was still refused access to his medical report by the authorities upon his release. To make things worse, Meng Han’s identification document has been confiscated by the authorities in exchange for his pledge to cease carrying out labour rights’ defending duties and to no longer conduct media interviews, although the request was eventually rebuffed by Meng Han. Without ID, Meng is eligible for neither medical treatment from public hospitals and private clinics nor any form of employment. In order to treat his disease, Meng relies on buying medicine that costs him about RMB 2,500 per month.

On 6 December 2017 the State Council issued the Implementation Rules for the Law on Counter-espionage which came into force in November 2014. The new Rules significantly enhance the powers of the State Security, which had already gained significant clout under the original legislation. In particular, pursuant to section 8 of the Rules, State Security can investigate acts of subversion that are not necessarily related to espionage, including:
  situations involving “fabricating or distorting facts, publishing or disseminating text or information that endangers national security, or creating, transmitting, or publishing products or other publications that endanger national security”;
  “using religion to carry out activities endangering national security’; and
  “foreign individuals [violating] the relevant provisions, not [heeding] discouragement, and, without authorisation, [meeting] with mainland persons who endangered national security or who are strongly suspected of having endangered national security”.
Section 6 of the Rules also expands the concept of “funding” espionage to include providing funding to those who engage in espionage even if the money is not used for that aim and the funder is not aware of the illegal conduct. This will significantly reinforce the hand of the State Security in dealing with activists and NGOs working in politically sensitive areas, as well as serve to intimidate their foreign donors.
Since April, the Beijing State Security Bureau started rewarding informants reporting on spies with RMB 10,000 - 500,000, under the measures on rewards for citizens reporting leads on espionage conduct.

In August 2017 former migrant worker and labour activist Lu and his girlfriend Li Tingyu were sentenced to four years in prison. They were both editors of an online blog called Wekidonna which specifically documented labour disputes and work stoppage cases reported on social media sources. Earlier this year, activist Huang Qi was detained half a year because of his work reporting on similar stories on his website 64 Tianwang.

On 7 July 2017, labour activist Liu Shaoming was sentenced to four and a half years’ imprisonment for “inciting subversion of state power.”

Liu Shaoming is a labour activist; a former member of the Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation (BWAF), China’s first independent trade union; and the founder of Volunteers for Workers’ Rights, an organisation working to bridge the pro-democracy and labour rights movements in China during collective labour disputes.
In recent years, Liu has successfully organised workers to win fair settlements in several high profile disputes. Then in May 2015, Liu published an essay about his experiences during the 1989 Tiananmen Square Movement as a member of the Beijing Workers’ Autonomous Federation (WAF). He went missing four days later. On 14 June 2015, the Guangdong police confirmed that he was being detained at the Huadu Detention Centre in Guangdong Province. He was charged with “picking quarrels and provoking troubles” and “inciting subversion of state power.”
In April 2016, Liu was tried at an Intermediate People’s Court in Guangzhou. He was barred from meeting with his lawyers before and during the trial on grounds of “national security”. The trial ended within one day and he remained in custody.
By July 2017 concerns for his health were mounting. In a statement published on 5 July 2017, the Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions (HKCTU) said “reports indicate that Liu Shaoming has been suffering from abdominal pain since October 2016. Liu Shaoming needs proper medical attention now.” Liu was officially sentenced two days later.
Several Chinese rights advocates have been jailed for trying to keep alive the memory of the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement that was crushed by the military. Hundreds of civilians – over 1,000 by some estimates – are believed to have died in the crackdown.

On 27 June 2017, riot police arrived at the Zama Pre Zama Precision Industry plant in Shenzhen to quell a protest by hundreds of workers campaigning for medical treatment after working for years at dangerous painting jobs without proper safety equipment. The riot police arrived at the scene with dogs. Five workers were arrested, and over a dozen injured with pepper spray.

Zama workers had been organising organising The process of forming or joining a trade union, or inducing other workers to form or join one. at the factory since April when they heard of the factory’s plans to relocate to Huizhou, around 100 kilometres to the northeast. The workers listed various demands, including health and safety grievances, social insurance, and severance payments; they approached management for negotiations, calling for compensation. One worker, Mr. Wang, explained that he and 150 of his colleagues worked under dangerous conditions and were exposed to harmful chemicals on a daily basis. “At my post there was absolutely no safety equipment, no masks, no gloves, and no special subsidies like there are at other factories,” said Wang.
The workers suffer from persistent headaches and feared they had incurred occupational illnesses while at Zama. They selected ten representatives and demanded management pay for medical examinations to check for occupational injuries before the factory relocated. Management refused to pay compensation of any kind before workers either signed new contracts with the company or voluntarily resigned. Zama workers rejected the proposal and went on strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike on 26 June, protesting at the factory. It was the following day that management called the police.

Three labour activists were arrested on 28 May 2017 for investigating working conditions at shoe factories.
Hua Haifeng and Li Zhao worked covertly at a shoe factory in the city of Dongguan, in Guangdong province, owned by the Huajian Group, which makes shoes for Western brands, including those bearing the Ivanka Trump label. During their time there they found evidence of workers’ rights abuses at the factory including pay below minimum wage, verbal abuse of workers and the use of derogatory language towards female employees. The third investigator, Su Heng, had worked at a related factory in the city of Ganzhou in Jiangxi, which also produced Ivanka Trump-branded shoes.
The three activists were working with the NGO China Labour Watch. The arrests were the first in the organisation’s 17-year history. Hua Haifeg suspects that the fact that Ivanka Trump-branded shoes were made at the factory may have had something to do with their detention, although he said before he arrived at the factory, he didn’t even know Ivanka had a clothing brand.
Hua Haifeng was interrogated in marathon sessions every other day for a month, during which police repeatedly asked him for details of his investigation. During his detention police also searched his home and questioned his wife.
All three were released on bail on 28 June pending trial.

Three worker representatives at a Volkswagen plant in the northeast city of Changchun were detained by police on 26 May 2017 accused of “assembling a crowd to disturb social order”.
The arrests related to a demonstration by agency workers, held in conjunction with the annual Changchun Marathon on 21 May, to press for their demands for equal pay. Two of the worker representatives, Wang Shuai and Ai Zhenyu, were released pending trial after seven days in detention. Fu Tianbo remained in custody.

The FAW-Volkswagen plant in Changchun employs more than 3,000 workers on “temporary” contracts. Many of them have been working there for more than ten years, receiving only about half of the wage and none of the benefits of full-time workers. In November 2016 they began to organise to seek equal treatment with permanent staff in accordance with Chinese law and international standards. They tried submitting their case to the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), the labour arbitration arbitration A means of resolving disputes outside the courts through the involvement of a neutral third party, which can either be a single arbitrator or an arbitration board. In non-binding arbitration, the disputing parties are free to reject the third party’s recommendation, whilst in binding arbitration they are bound by its decision. Compulsory arbitration denotes the process where arbitration is not voluntarily entered into by the parties, but is prescribed by law or decided by the authorities.

See conciliation, mediation committee and to court, to no avail. Letters to the VW headquarters in Germany failed to produce any result.

A protest in February at the district labour arbitration arbitration A means of resolving disputes outside the courts through the involvement of a neutral third party, which can either be a single arbitrator or an arbitration board. In non-binding arbitration, the disputing parties are free to reject the third party’s recommendation, whilst in binding arbitration they are bound by its decision. Compulsory arbitration denotes the process where arbitration is not voluntarily entered into by the parties, but is prescribed by law or decided by the authorities.

See conciliation, mediation committee led to an intensification of police surveillance along with an increased pressure from management on worker representatives. Representatives reported that management forced them to change jobs or increase their workload. Many workers reported being contacted by police by phone and put under surveillance.

A request to organise a May Day demonstration was refused, and finally the workers organised the 21 May protest, which led to the arrests. Fu Tianbo has remained in custody awaiting trial, and his family have faced harassment.

Since the 709 Crackdown in 2015, arrests and threats against human rights lawyers and their families continue. At the end of April 2017, Li Heping, a prominent human rights lawyer, was convicted of “subversion of state power” after two years detention. In a secret trial, a court in Tianjin sentenced him to three years in prison with a four-year reprieve, meaning that he was to be released but could still be arrested again at any time. He was accused of repeatedly using the internet and foreign media interviews to discredit and attack China’s state power and the legal system. The court also accused Li of accepting foreign funding and employing paid defendants.
For many others the ordeal continues. The whereabouts of another lawyer, Wang Quanzhang, remain unknown. There were convincing reports of acts of torture committed on Jiang Tianyong while in detention. Tianyong was detained without a trial and has been reported missing since November 2016. Proof of torture of another lawyer, Xie Yang, who had also been detained since November 2016, was presented by his representative lawyer in January 2017. The transcript of a conversation describes the details of the physical and mental abuse he has been subjected to while in detention. On 12 January 2017 human rights lawyer Li Chunfu emerged from nearly 17 months in police custody in a shattered state, suffering from violent bouts of paranoia and with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. On 27 February 2017, eleven diplomatic missions in Beijing wrote a letter to Guo Shenkun – the Minister of Public Security – expressing their “growing concern over recent claims of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment in cases concerning detained human rights lawyers and other human rights defenders”.

On 1 January 2017 the controversial Law on the Management of Foreign NGOs’ Activities within mainland China came into force. Foreign NGOs have to register and report to the Public Security. Unregistered foreign NGOs and their partners in China have to file for approval from the public security for all their activities and research inside China. Labour centres on migrant workers attached to the legal department in Wuhan University and Nanjing University were closed down as a result of the implementation of this law.

Simultaneous industrial action industrial action Any form of action taken by a group of workers, a union or an employer during an industrial dispute to gain concessions from the other party, e.g. a strike, go-slow or an overtime ban, or a lockout on the part of the employer. took place in three different Chinese cities - Chongqing, Chengdu and Jilin - hosting three different Coca-Cola factories. In an unprecedented coordinated action in Chinese activism, employees of the Coca-Cola Company in China demonstrated against the multinational giant’s willingness to sell off its bottling operations in the country. In mid-November 2016, the company announced its plan to divest its bottling stakes in China between Swire Beverage Holdings Ltd. and China Foods Ltd., part of the state-owned COFCO.

Worried that COFCO would cut staff after it took over, workers called for a general coordinated strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike on 21 November 2016. Temporary personnel hired by police entered the Chongqing factory area, turned off all the lights and started beating and abducting protesters - including a pregnant woman - citing the need to maintain public order as justification. A bloody conflict ensued as unofficial police personnel broke down doors of washrooms that workers were using as shelters to hide themselves.

A Coca-Cola mid-level manager in China said that the company had not responded to the demands of staff, causing the legitimate intensification of tension. On the workers’ side clear efforts were made to meet management half way. In an effort to try to legitimise a co-negotiated process of buy-out, employees tried to involve the All-China Federation of Trade Unions – the only union recognised by the Chinese government – despite the state-sponsored union’s lack of expertise in advocating for workers’ rights. Management did not address this proposal for joint negotiations, suppressing all collective actions with violence instead.

A judge of the Sichuan province of Langzhong sentenced eight migrant workers - three women and five men - to between six and eight months of prison. Before reading the verdict, they were lined up in a public square behind placards identifying their individual villages of origin. Police guards flanked each one of them, while rifle-toting sentries stood nearby and no defence lawyer was granted. The eight workers were found guilty of congregating on 16 March 2016 in front of the office of their debtor, a real estate constructor, in order to ask for arrears in their salaries.

The “trial” took place in front of a huge crowd gathered together to receive what is commonly known in China as “an education in the law” consisting of the public condemnation of the indicted and serving as a lesson to citizens. Nonetheless, despite the intention of the authorities, the assembled citizens reacted very differently from the past. They attributed blame to the delinquent employer and forced the website of the Langzhong City People’s Court to remove the photographs of the public trial following collective uproar and indignation. Chinese workers are well aware that wage arrears are a major problem for everyone and protests in this respect are frequent and widespread in the country. For example, earlier in March 2016, thousands of mining workers in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang took to the streets after the governor claimed that none of them were owed back pay back pay Wages or benefits due an employee for past employment. Often awarded when the employee has been unfairly dismissed. Not to be confused with retroactive pay (delayed payment for work previously done at a lower wage rate). , though he eventually admitted he was wrong later.

Wages are supposed to be paid before workers travel home the month before the Lunar New Year holiday, but many contractors still fail to do so, largely because local officials do not care about the inconvenience to workers and are also often in collaboration with the employers. The easiest and fastest way to eradicate the problem is therefore to suppress the conflict and they often condemn workers to prison for demanding the payment of wages, citing alleged obstruction of traffic or disturbance of public order.

Two workers from the state-owned Wuyang Iron and Steel Co. Ltd in Henan province – ZHAO Xiaoming and WANG Shangyau – were sacked by the company on 13 March 2015 for instigating a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike and provoking workers to establish a new enterprise union enterprise union A union whose membership is limited to workers in one particular enterprise. Sometimes called a company union, but should not be confused with a yellow union. . Workers were warned by management and had to sign letter stating they would not join the new union and would refrain from criticising the company in order to keep their jobs.

On 2 February 2016, almost ten thousand workers put down their tools and took to the street to demand a wage increase. Zhao and Wang, amongst others, were arrested and charged for obstructing traffic and disturbing the public order.

Around 300 logistics workers working for the company Sinotrans in Shenzen were pressured by management to agree to be transferred to Dongguan. This is also when workers who had been working for the material storage of the company realised that they were not considered regular employees but were in fact agency workers employed through different recruitment agencies. Management called elected workers’ representatives to a meeting with management to discuss the matter. However, on their way, the workers were attacked by 20 thugs who took their IDs away and forced them to sign resignation letters.

About 5000 workers employed at the factory Kalex PCB located in Zhongshan participated in a demonstration in order to protest against the reduction of social insurance premiums. Workers were stopped by anti-riot police when they were heading towards the governmental offices. Police tried to stop the workers through physical violence injuring three workers and arresting six workers.

Union leaders employed at Marks & Spencer and Pacific Brand supplier Grosby Footwear Company Ltd (GCL) were arrested and detained in Shenzhen following a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike that lasted for more than one month. Management did not recognise the freely elected leaders and told workers to elect other leaders after two of their leaders were detained. Public authorities and the ACFTU were petitioned to but did not come out in support of the workers. In addition, 87 workers were dismissed for their participation in the strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike , and in the Henggang Labour Arbitration arbitration A means of resolving disputes outside the courts through the involvement of a neutral third party, which can either be a single arbitrator or an arbitration board. In non-binding arbitration, the disputing parties are free to reject the third party’s recommendation, whilst in binding arbitration they are bound by its decision. Compulsory arbitration denotes the process where arbitration is not voluntarily entered into by the parties, but is prescribed by law or decided by the authorities.

See conciliation, mediation Court they lost their petition for reinstatement. Other workers were intimidated by these actions and returned back to work. Workers who had not participated in the strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike received bonuses from the company.

Workers had been demanding to be informed about a suspected closure of business which would have had implications for their jobs. Employers typically refuse to inform workers about retrenchment and restructuring plans in order to avoid negotiations with workers over severance pay and notice periods.

In most of the labour strikes and labour petitions across the country, workers were threatened by employers for breaking company rules, harassed by intervening government officers and ended up in physical clashes with the police who stepped in readily for public security reasons. The examples are numerous. These patterned reactions are the result of the absence of the right to strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike whereby provincial, municipal and township governments are authorised to put up their own guidelines to handle mass incidents defined into scale and levels of public security concerns. The local guidelines authorise the local government to command civil officers, the ACFTU and the police to restore public and production order.

In February 2013, nearly 200 health workers and security guards employed at the First Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine through employment agency were dismissed without prior notice and severance pay. In June 2013, the workers organised a picket at the hospital demanding severance pay. As a result, health workers were offered RMB 20,000 compensation. However, the agency that employed the security guards continued to refuse to pay severance. During the protest, workers clashed with police and were arrested. Twelve security workers were prosecuted after 4 months’ detention for “assembling a crowd to disturb public order” under Article 290 of the Criminal Law. In April 2014, the district court found all workers guilty and sentenced three workers to a 9-month imprisonment and six workers to 8-month imprisonment. Charges against the remaining three workers were dropped and they were released.

Workers participating in strikes and pickets faced threats and harassment by both employers and government officials throughout the country. Wide-scale abuses can be explained by the fact that there is no explicit recognition recognition The designation by a government agency of a union as the bargaining agent for workers in a given bargaining unit, or acceptance by an employer that its employees can be collectively represented by a union. of the right to strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike . Therefore, protests and strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike actions are often treated as public security issues.

In December 2014, workers at Shenzhen Artigas Clothing and Leatherware factory staged a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike to demand the mandatory social insurance and housing insurance and overtime compensation in arrears as the employer was planning to relocate to a new site. Lately, senior workers above 50 years old were pressured to quit their jobs. They were insured only from 2003 onward and would not be qualified to pension entitlements which require 15 years of continuous contribution by law. On 4 December 2014, workers complained to the labour bureau about arrears in social and housing insurance payments and requested a response from management. Not having gotten a reply, workers decided to go on strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike on 10 December in order to compel management to negotiate. However, before any negotiations could start between workers and management, police stormed the workplace and arrested 23 workers, including elected workers’ representatives. Other workers were barred from leaving the workplace and were asked to return to work.
In May 2015, management attempted to reemploy workers in a newly registered company under a different employment contract. A third of the workers did not agree to the changes and demanded negotiations over this issue. The negotiation meeting was rejected by the management, and on 9 June 2015 Wu Weihua, a workers’ representative who previously refused bribes, was dismissed and barred from entering the workplace. When she tried to enter the workplace, management called police, who arrested her. Workers who went to the police station to demand Wu’s release were also detained by the police. The local government intervened and set up a negotiation meeting between management and workers on 11 June 2015. However, police were also present intimidating workers who then refused to attend the meeting.
Management tried to undermine collective demands by attempting to negotiate with workers individually, but no agreements could be reached.

From early 2015, New An Lun Lamp started outsourcing outsourcing See contracting-out its production and paying workers not more than the statutory minimum wage. On 13 April 2015, the whole workforce went on strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike . They elected 53 representatives and demanded a negotiation with the management before 25 April. Workers demanded compensation for their unpaid overtime and incentives, social and housing insurances and paid leave. They also protested against high production quotas and unfair penalties as well as harsh factory rules such as toilet break restrictions. The management postponed the negotiation meeting until 28 April. During the negotiation meeting, the management posted a notice threatening to dismiss all workers who participated in strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike action.
When negotiations broke down, workers went on strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike organising organising The process of forming or joining a trade union, or inducing other workers to form or join one. a sit-in in front of the warehouse. On 13 May, six elected workers’ representatives were sacked for leading the strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike . On the same day, public security came to the factory and took away nine striking workers including three elected representatives for administrative detention. The sacked representatives are appealing to the intermediate court regarding their unfair dismissal and arrest.

Foshan Art and Crafts Works refused to recognise independently elected union leaders for collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
and instead retaliated against workers putting forward demands for improving working conditions and wages. Workers elected ZHU Xinhua as their representative in 16 June 2014 after their salaries decreased significantly due to substantial cuts in orders and thus overtime. On 23 June 2014, they requested to negotiate the following issues with their employer: protection of basic wages, consistent payment of social insurance contributions, housing premiums and guarantees for non-retaliation against workers. When management did not respond to this request, workers contacted the Ministry of Labour for assistance and facilitation. Yet, instead of providing any support, police interrogated them for more than two hours at the police station. Workers resorted to strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike action in order to press for their demands and for their independent representation. Representatives from the municipal government and official trade union federation visited the factory in order to verify employment conditions and mediate compensation on 21 July 2014. However, on the same day, five workers were detained at the police station and only released at midnight.

Management finally agreed to a negotiation meeting with the workers as a result of the pressure from the municipal government and official trade union. The workers’ representatives were able to agree with the managers on several key demands.
In this process workers also started to challenge the trade union leaders imposed by management and instead demanded to be represented by elected union leaders and to carry out regular collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
negotiations in order to review working conditions at the plant. However, on 25 November 2014, management dismissed the workers ZHU Xinhua, CHENG Hongshuang and QIAN Shen who had been elected as representatives. Management justified the dismissals saying that they had acted “inappropriately” and had been absent without permission. In addition, 35 workers who had signed a petition for re-running union elections were locked out of the factory. The union representatives and 32 of the locked-out workers filed a complaint with the arbitration arbitration A means of resolving disputes outside the courts through the involvement of a neutral third party, which can either be a single arbitrator or an arbitration board. In non-binding arbitration, the disputing parties are free to reject the third party’s recommendation, whilst in binding arbitration they are bound by its decision. Compulsory arbitration denotes the process where arbitration is not voluntarily entered into by the parties, but is prescribed by law or decided by the authorities.

See conciliation, mediation tribunal. Management argued during the first hearing on 2 February 2015 that six workers were dismissed for absenteeism and that 26 workers were disciplined for bringing mobile phones to the workplace.

On 28 December 2014, one thousand public school teachers from different secondary schools left the classroom to protest the county government for not paying wages under the new pay scale. Some teachers were barred from leaving their classroom and school to join the protest by the school authority and public security. Moreover, four protesting teachers were beaten up by the police and arrested.

More than one hundred workers joined a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike on 20 October 2014 in order to protest against their employer Dongguan Futaba Metal Products’ refusal to pay overtime and social security contributions as per law. The government sent anti-riot police to the factory on 22 October 2014 who arrested eight workers and detained another four.

The Public Security Administration Punishments Law is widely used to detain striking workers for disturbing public order, traffic and enterprise operation for 7-37 days or criminal detention for more than a year (Art. 23; 50).
  About 200 police interfered in a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike at the company Beauty Star Logistics in Shangha injuring 20 workers and arresting another four workers in July 2014.
  About 400 police and security guards interfered in a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike organised by logistics workers at the Jingdong Mall in September 2014. Overall, 10 workers were detained and four workers were arrested and charged.
  Police interfered in a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike held by about 1700 workers at Huaian Technical Consumer Products. Workers were protesting against unjustified wage deductions and 15-hour working days without compensation. Police arrested more than 40 workers.

The growing number of disputes on corporate re-structuring and retrenchment reveals that employers do not negotiate, consult, or even inform the union or workers. This becomes the immediate cause to retrenchment-related strikes and unfair dismissals by the employers.
Retrenchment is not covered in the scope of bargaining in the local collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
laws. Without a national law on collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
, the local regulations legislated so far vary from regulating wage- specific bargaining to collective contract bargaining or democratic management at the workplace. The scope of issues to bargain also differs and largely focuses on wages and working conditions. Retrenchment and job security, corporate restructuring, as well as disciplines and training are not included in the scope of bargaining in many of these local laws.
The Guangdong Provincial Regulation on Enterprise Collective Contract, passed in September 2014 after four years of objection from the employers, contains eight categories of bargaining issues on working conditions but nothing on retrenchment, job security and disciplines. The law also allows employers to discipline workers who went on a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike for breaking company laws and in addition imposes administrative punishments and criminal liability.
Interpretations of Labour Contract Law (LCL) on retrenchment under various circumstances and labour consultation are contradictory. More and more such cases were channelled to the legal procedure as a result of employers’ refusal to bargain. Article 4 regarding “crucial matters” and Article 41 concerning large scale lay-offs in the LCL are the main legal reference used by workers and their representative lawyers in court to call unilateral terminations illegal and demand negotiation and compensation. However, companies and the local government increasingly undermine procedural justice by referring to Article 44.
While the applicability of Article 4 of LCL to mandate employers to bargain or consult the trade union and workers in retrenchment situations is unclear, the arbitration arbitration A means of resolving disputes outside the courts through the involvement of a neutral third party, which can either be a single arbitrator or an arbitration board. In non-binding arbitration, the disputing parties are free to reject the third party’s recommendation, whilst in binding arbitration they are bound by its decision. Compulsory arbitration denotes the process where arbitration is not voluntarily entered into by the parties, but is prescribed by law or decided by the authorities.

See conciliation, mediation and civil courts are giving judgements to deny workers of the right in retrenchment situations. Labour has lost in most cases.

On 29 September 2014, about 600 bus conductors went on strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike and surrounded the government office demanding clarification of the Transport Department’s automation policy and the bus company’s plans to retrench workers without payment of compensation. Workers clashed with police resulting in the arrest of 10 strikers.

Nearly a thousand teachers from public schools in Lianjiang held a demonstration on 29 June 2013 against unjustified salary deductions and delayed payment of social insurance premiums. Unable to give an explanation about the education budget and allocation, the municipal government called in the principals of the schools involved and issued an administrative order to ban the teachers from protesting at the government office. Moreover, teachers were threatened with dismissal and blacklisting. Other teachers were locked out or forced to sign statements declaring they would not participate in demonstrations and strikes. Police was sent to guard the government office and to detain teacher representatives.

On 25 July 2013, 246 workers at Qunyi Footwear Company in Nanhai held a protest when they found out that their employer had run away without settling their wages. 29 workers were arrested and put under criminal detention for seven days for “assembling a crowd and disrupting traffic.”

On 28 January 2013, workers at Tokai Rubber Industries in Guangzhou put down their tools after the representatives they elected had failed to reach a settlement with the employer about a cut in their year-end bonus. They staged a sit-in at the factory complex and were dispersed by more than 200 police officers sent by the district government. Five workers were injured and more than 10 workers were put under administrative detention.

On 8 November 2013, 200 workers at Shenzhen Lingjin Electronics Co. Ltd blocked the factory entrance to demand a negotiation with the employer about the relocation of the plant. Refusing to negotiate, the employer called the police to arrest all the seven elected workers’ representatives. Police in plain clothes were sent to identify the active workers. On 16 November 2013, police searched the apartments of the identified workers and harassed their families.The employer threatened the workers with dismissal and government representatives pressured workers to settle for a low compensation.

On 7 November 2013, 2000 workers from Towada Electronics Company (Dongguan) went on strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike after they were told by management that the company was sold. Workers demanded severance compensation and the election of new trade union representatives before signing a new contract. Refusing to negotiate with the workers’ representatives, the management dismissed and demoted the junior management who took part in the strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike and warned supervisors. Plain clothes and police were sent in to follow the leaders and monitor the online discussion blogs established by workers. One worker was detained on 13 November 2013 and only released after workers blocked the company entrance.

Nokia’s Dongguan plant started to lay off a hundred workers since August 2013 under the company’s global retrenchment scheme and buyout to Microsoft. At the same time, a number of unskilled workers were recruited in October to do packaging and labeling. About 3000 workers went on strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike on 19 November 2013 when the management released a new set of work rules which would allow the company to put workers under low-pay leave whenever there was less work to do. Mistrusting the enterprise union enterprise union A union whose membership is limited to workers in one particular enterprise. Sometimes called a company union, but should not be confused with a yellow union. which was appointed by the management, the strikers elected their own representatives and handed a thousand signatures to the management for a negotiation. Management did not accept to start negotiations and sent dismissal notices via telephone messages from unknown sources. Management promised bonuses to workers who agreed to return to work. On 26 November 2013, anti-riot police and police plain clothes were sent to the workplace leading to a physical clash and the detention of four workers. These measures worked to break up the strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike and most of the workers returned to work on 27 November 2013. 213 workers were sacked in total for illegal assembly and violating the company rules. Nokia refused their reinstatement during an arbitration arbitration A means of resolving disputes outside the courts through the involvement of a neutral third party, which can either be a single arbitrator or an arbitration board. In non-binding arbitration, the disputing parties are free to reject the third party’s recommendation, whilst in binding arbitration they are bound by its decision. Compulsory arbitration denotes the process where arbitration is not voluntarily entered into by the parties, but is prescribed by law or decided by the authorities.

See conciliation, mediation hearing on 20 January 2014, claiming that the workers had already been replaced.

More than 200 workers from Framas Dongguan Plastic Ltd put down their tools from 27-30 September 2013 to protest the cancellation of the National Day bonus. Eleven supervisors who had taken part in the strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike were sacked on 30 September 2013.

69 workers including fourteen workers’ representatives from Heng T Rubber (Shenzhen) were sacked between 19 and 21 October 2013 for taking part in a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike on 14 October 2013. They were protesting against the installation of CCTV at the shopfloor. The dismissed workers proceeded to labour arbitration arbitration A means of resolving disputes outside the courts through the involvement of a neutral third party, which can either be a single arbitrator or an arbitration board. In non-binding arbitration, the disputing parties are free to reject the third party’s recommendation, whilst in binding arbitration they are bound by its decision. Compulsory arbitration denotes the process where arbitration is not voluntarily entered into by the parties, but is prescribed by law or decided by the authorities.

See conciliation, mediation for reinstatement.

The Shenzhen government imposes a ban on strikes in the public utility sector, namely water, electricity, gas supply and public transportation (Regulations of the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone on the Promotion of the Harmonious Labor Relationship of Shenzhen Municipality (2008)).

Labour strikes and workers’ requests for bargaining are treated as social stability and public security issues by the local governments. The Trade Union Law also obliges the only trade union, the ACFTU to restore production and order when a stoppage of work occurs. In the absence of a national law on strikes and collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
, guidelines have been issued by local governments and labour bureaus to form stability committees composed of government representatives, the branch committees of the Chinese Communist Party and the federation of trade unions to step in and resume work on the shopfloor. The standards of these mediation mediation A process halfway between conciliation and arbitration, in mediation a neutral third party assists the disputing parties in reaching a settlement to an industrial dispute by suggesting possible, non-binding solutions.

See arbitration, conciliation guidelines are uneven enabling the local government officers to interfere in the negotiation and bargaining process between workers and employers. The labour authority and trade union federations are requested to persuade strikers to return to work while the mediation mediation A process halfway between conciliation and arbitration, in mediation a neutral third party assists the disputing parties in reaching a settlement to an industrial dispute by suggesting possible, non-binding solutions.

See arbitration, conciliation is going on, and to take part in the negotiation and settlement.

The revised Labour Contract Law effective from January 2013 defines the scope of agency work and restricts the use of agency workers to temporary (less than six months), auxiliary and substitute posts.
The Agency Work Regulation is effective from March 2014 and limits the number of agency workers to not more than ten per cent of the total workforce of an enterprise and protects their equal remuneration. Before assigning positions to agency workers, the employer needs to consult and discuss with the trade union and workers’ representatives. However, the new regulation does not have provision on the right of the agency workers to form and join trade union.

The ACFTU’s Directive on Organising organising The process of forming or joining a trade union, or inducing other workers to form or join one. Agency Workers to Join the Trade Union passed in 2009 allows agency workers to join the trade union at the agency company rather than at the place of work. Agency workers are also not covered by collective agreements at the work place.

Although the trade union law and ACFTU directives allow the election of trade union committees and chairpersons, most of the trade unions at the enterprise level in China are not directly elected by workers. In practice, the Chairperson of trade unions at enterprise level is the Deputy Secretary of the branch office of the Chinese Communist Party; and the Vice-Chairperson and committee members come from the management. Even if there are elections, they are conducted by the federation and the employers and are not democratic or transparent. The lack of financial independence of trade unions at enterprise level also undermines their capacity to represent their members’ interests.
Two joint studies released in 2013 by students from nine universities in China show that the trade union elections conducted in five foreign invested enterprises in Guangdong province and three plants of Foxconn in Shenzhen and Wuhan city were flawed in a number of ways.
For example, supervisors did not allow some workers to participate in the vote which was held during working hours. The nomination of the candidates was not open and transparent but dominated by the election preparatory committee consisting of leaders of the federation and company representatives. As a result, most candidates are supervisors. Single-candidate elections were not uncommon and elections were often held without adequate time for workers to question candidates.

The company Sumida located in Guangzhou retaliated and interfered with workers trying to establish an independent trade union. In September 2013, workers complained to management about low wages and irregular payment of social insurance contributions by the company. Management responded by harassing and dismissing 10 workers’ representatives and 50 vocal workers. When workers tried to organise in order to effectively demand improvements in their working conditions, they were told that they could not because management was establishing a trade union. In addition, workers were told that they could not engage in the union established by the company. The workers complained to the district level trade union federation about the intimidation and pressure faced over trying to establish independent collective representation. On 9 June 2014, the federation sent a team to investigate the complaint. The team recommended that workers join the company-controlled union and that management give workers a role in their union through elections. However, management did not follow the recommendations, thus rigging the elections and retaliating against workers.

In the Yntai Dongxing Pipeline case, management, together with the ACFTU (All-China Federation of Trade Unions), by-passed the decision of union members concerning wage increases and the election of a local union local union A local branch of a higher-level trade union such as a national union. chairperson. The strikes that were about to follow as a reaction were undermined when workers were threatened to be dismissed on 5 August 2013.

Five workers at the US-owned company “International Paper” were dismissed after they had taken part in a two-day strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike on 19-20 February 2013 against unequal remuneration and bonuses. The company argued workers did not observe their obligations when they returned to work on 21 February 2013. While the arbitration arbitration A means of resolving disputes outside the courts through the involvement of a neutral third party, which can either be a single arbitrator or an arbitration board. In non-binding arbitration, the disputing parties are free to reject the third party’s recommendation, whilst in binding arbitration they are bound by its decision. Compulsory arbitration denotes the process where arbitration is not voluntarily entered into by the parties, but is prescribed by law or decided by the authorities.

See conciliation, mediation court ruled that their dismissal was illegal, the company was not condemned to any penalty and was not ordered to reinstate workers. This case is emblematic of how the lack of effective legal remedies against anti-union discrimination anti-union discrimination Any practice that disadvantages a worker or a group of workers on grounds of their past, current or prospective trade union membership, their legitimate trade union activities, or their use of trade union services. Can constitute dismissal, transfer, demotion, harassment and the like.

See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework

is exposing workers to abuses by employers.

Thousands of workers, who have been retrenched by the China Construction Bank and other commercial banks ten years ago, were protesting their situation in May and July 2013. On 22 July, the protest was violently repressed and a hundred of protesters were sent to Majialou and Jiujingzhuang blackjails, from which they were released after having staged a hunger strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike . However, workers have continued to seek their rights through protests in October 2013, even though the government tries to silence workers through various forms of abuses such as forced labour and illegal detentions in disguised camps.

About 160 self-employed taxi drivers from Shuangliu county announced a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike on 28 January 2013. Workers wanted to protest against irregular licence renewal fees and the restructuring of the self-employed taxi drivers into taxi companies. However, about 100 workers were stopped by force from reaching Beijing and sent back to Shuangliu by force. They were blocked by the county government officials before arriving Beijing and brought back to the county under administrative detention. The workers petitioned to the Transportation Ministry in Beijing in April 2013. Three workers are still in custody and are charged for illegal assembly. Their application for bail was denied and hearings have been postponed without justification. The case is still pending before the courts.

Twelve security workers were prosecuted on charges of illegal assembly and disruption of the public order after a protest at the First Hospital of Chinese Medical University of Guangzhou city on 20 August 2013. Workers were demanding social security protection for agency workers. The hearing for the case was delayed for more than seven months.

As part of plans to downsize its presence in China, Walmart decided to close down a store in Chengde city in the Hunan province in March 2014. The company did not respect its obligation to consult and notify workers 30 days in advance in accordance with the Labour Contract Law. Instead management argued that it had the agreement of the municipal authority.
Workers demanded negotiations over compensation packages and social security payments. Rather than negotiating with the union, management unsuccessfully attempted to speak to workers individually. Mediation mediation A process halfway between conciliation and arbitration, in mediation a neutral third party assists the disputing parties in reaching a settlement to an industrial dispute by suggesting possible, non-binding solutions.

See arbitration, conciliation meetings facilitated by the government were unsuccessful as the company refused to agree on compensation payments in violation of Chinese labour laws.
In a reply dated 10 April 2014 to the Hong Kong-based NGO Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM), Walmart Asia management stated, “We offered to meet with each affected individual one-by-one to discuss their options. We think this practice is certainly more private and more respectful. It gives them a chance to fully understand options and to ask any questions they might have.” This statement again reveals Walmart’s systematic policy to undermine trade unions by pressuring workers individually.

Employers, in particular the multinational companies, have not shown good faith in bargaining with workers and the trade union during corporate re-structuring and retrenchment. About one third of the strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike cases documented in 2013 are disputes related to retrenchment and restructuring. Workers and trade unions are not informed and consulted in advance. Employers reject to negotiate with workers’ representatives or the trade union even when workers declare strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike action. Instead of consulting with the trade union at the enterprise, Walmart closed down 20 stores after securing the consent of the local government. Workers were informed of the decision and were given 15 days to sign up to the severance compensation required by law without any negotiation. Walmart did not abide by the legal requirement to negotiate an agreement 30 days before terminating the employment contracts.
147 employees and the store union representatives at Huaian store of Jiangsu province were informed about their dismissals on 5 November 2013, a fortnight before the store closure. On 3 December 2013, employees of Chengyang store of Qingdao city were given two weeks to sign the company’s severance plan. On 5 December 2013, a hundred workers from Jinghua store in Luoyang city blocked the street to protest the store closure right after learning that the store was closing on 19 December. Previously another hundred workers of the store had been retrenched by the management using different excuses. Workers at the Maonshan store of Liaoning province also staged a protest and clashed with police on 19 March 2014. On 5 March 2014, 143 workers at Chengde store in Hunan province staged a protest and demanded economic compensation from Walmart. The mediation mediation A process halfway between conciliation and arbitration, in mediation a neutral third party assists the disputing parties in reaching a settlement to an industrial dispute by suggesting possible, non-binding solutions.

See arbitration, conciliation meetings facilitated by the government and labour bureau representatives were targeted at pressuring the enterprise level unions to drop their demands. Walmart refused further negotiation with the union and announced the automatic termination of workers’ contract after 28 March 2014.

20 workers were sacked on 10 March 2014 by IBM Systems Technology Company (ISTC) in Shenzhen for participating in a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike over the merger of the company with Lenovo. ISTC promised workers they would maintain the same working conditions and salaries after the merger. The company asked the workers to choose between claiming their severance compensation with ISTC and preserving their seniority in the new contract. Workers did not accept this plan and went on a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike on 3 March 2014. However, ISTC refused to negotiate with workers’ representatives and started to harass elected union leaders with text messages. On 10 March 2014, management dismissed 20 workers who were leading the strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike for absence from work, assembling a crowd, disturbing production and breaching the company rules.

Sixteen agency workers employed at Changsha GACC-Johnson Controls Interiors Systems were dismissed for leading a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike . About 90 per cent of the employees of the Hunan based auto parts company, Changsha GACC-Johnson Controls Interiors Systems Co. Ltd., are agency workers. The district federation of trade union claims that 80 per cent of the agency workers are unionised. However, those unions were formed at the agencies at the request of the government rather than by the agency workers at the place of work. Agency workers are therefore not covered by a collective agreement at their workplace. Therefore, they started a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike on 7 January 2014 demanding an increase in their basic salary. Representatives from the district government, public security, the labour bureau and the district trade union federation stepped in to press the strikers return to work. On the same day, the management terminated the service of sixteen leading strikers and requested the agency company to sack them claiming they were provoking the strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike and violated the company rules. Other strikers were promised bonuses and returned to work on 11 January 2014.

Around 2000 to 3000 workers at three facilities of Shenzhen ASM Micro Electronic Technology Company Limited put down their tools on 31 October 2013 and started 22-day strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike over severance and compensation concerning the relocation of the plants to another site. The trade union leadership, which had been in place since 2006, resigned over the matter and the workers held a new election. On 20 November 2013, management tried to undermine the strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike by offering a 20 per cent increase in salaries to workers who were willing to accept relocation to the new site and threatening to dismiss workers refused. Moreover, police was deployed to disperse the workers on 21 November 2013. On the next day workers returned to work and seven workers’ representatives were sacked.

After Baring Private Equity Asia Group bought the fast food chain Golden Hans in January 2013 it refused to negotiate severance pay and new contracts with workers. In the acquisition of the fast food chain store, Golden Hans by Baring Private Equity Asia Group in January 2013, the new management had refused to negotiate the settlement of workers’ severance and a new contract. An eight-person committee was formed to represent more than 6000 employees from all branches and signatures were collected to demand a negotiation with the new management. However the new management did not attend the negotiation meeting scheduled for 4 September 2013. Subsequently, four workers’ representatives were sacked.

All the local wage negotiation legislation excludes agency workers. The only exception is Wuxi city in Jiangsu province, which allows the agency workers to take part in the collective negotiation with the company where they work. Although there is no provision barring agency workers from joining a trade union in Chinese law, they are allowed to join the trade union only in the agency company as stated in the ACFTU Directive passed in 2009.

Workers at the Diweixin Product Factory in Shenzhen (southern China) sought negotiations earlier this year in response to concerns about production cutbacks and apparent preparations for relocation to another site in the Chinese interior. However, management refused to disclose any information and to enter into negotiations. On 7 May 2013, workers downed tools and petitioned the local government to intervene. Police responded by arresting and detaining 20 workers on 23 May 2013. Wu Guijun, one of the representatives during the negotiations, was charged for “assembling a crowd to disturb social order”.

Flextronics’s factory in Shenzhen demanded that strikers sign a no-strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike agreement before they were allowed to return to work. The management posted a warning letter on 30 October 2012 declaring that they would dismiss all workers who refused to return to work on 31 October 2012 for violating the company code and the Labour Law and offering a cash reward of RMB 200 to those who had not participated in the strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike .

On 28 December 2011, all the workers from Shihe Wood (Shanghai) staged a three-day strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike to demand that management negotiate a settlement plan for the layoffs. The management put up a warning on 29 and 30 December requesting that workers return to work and subsequently fired 400 workers. Some of them took the company to court for illegal dismissal demanding compensation. Yuan, one of the plaintiffs, lost the case in the Court of First Instance and then in the intermediate court on 24 August 2012. Yuan was condemned for having broken company rules prohibiting absenteeism for three days, as well as participating in an illegal strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike and inciting others to strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike .

Although the Trade Union Law states that trade union officers at each level should be elected, most officials are appointed. In addition, elected candidates are subject to approval by the provincial-level All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) committees.

Many provinces have developed, or are in the process of developing, regulations concerning the obligation to hold trade union elections as stipulated in the Trade Union Law and increasingly by workers. In the wake of its inaction during the strikes at Honda in 2010, the union there agreed to hold elections directly for its enterprise officials as demanded by workers. Despite the potential repercussions there are some grassroots enterprise unions formed by the workers themselves through the use of official factory elections which are of some benefit to the workers. The adoption of collective bargaining collective bargaining The process of negotiating mutually acceptable terms and conditions of employment as well as regulating industrial relations between one or more workers’ representatives, trade unions, or trade union centres on the one hand and an employer, a group of employers or one or more employers’ organisations on the other.

See collective bargaining agreement
to resolve disputes has recently seen a minimal increase. In April, it was reported that a new union established by and for migrant workers in Tianjin managed to negotiate a collective agreement on pay rises, working conditions and working hours with a local labour supply agency.

The All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) has not been involved in a majority of disputes and collective actions in the major manufacturing zones where most private business is located and where most of the workers are internal migrant workers. Only some workers know of the existence of trade unions in their enterprises, and very few would seek assistance from the trade union in cases of rights abuse. This lack of assistance is one of the most important factors behind the rise of civil society labour groups providing legal and other services for mainly migrant (internal) workers. This has led some ACFTU branches to offer legal-aid-related services while continuing to avoid direct engagement in workers’ collective disputes and protests at the plant level.

The number of strikes - both spontaneous and organised, but without the official recognition recognition The designation by a government agency of a union as the bargaining agent for workers in a given bargaining unit, or acceptance by an employer that its employees can be collectively represented by a union. of the union - has continued to increase, especially among private enterprise workers. Privatisation and the ensuing redundancy it engenders is a major cause of labour unrest for state-owned enterprise workers while low pay, unpaid wages and poor working conditions are among the largest causes of strikes in the private sector. Figures suggest that each day around 1,000 workers are involved in industrial action industrial action Any form of action taken by a group of workers, a union or an employer during an industrial dispute to gain concessions from the other party, e.g. a strike, go-slow or an overtime ban, or a lockout on the part of the employer. in Guangdong Province alone.

Strikes and collective protests are often dispersed violently by armed police, and prominent strikers are picked up by the police and warned or charged with public order offences, traffic violations, breaking the law on parades and demonstrations, or more rarely serious political charges. Companies regularly dismiss and blacklist workers who have led or participated in strikes. In some instances, companies also hire men to beat and threaten workers protesting missing wages or taking other forms of industrial action industrial action Any form of action taken by a group of workers, a union or an employer during an industrial dispute to gain concessions from the other party, e.g. a strike, go-slow or an overtime ban, or a lockout on the part of the employer. , often with deadly results.

The increasingly commonplace nature of strikes has meant that despite the ambiguity of their legal position, some local authorities have been less hostile towards strikes, and more strikes appear to be successful. In response to the labour unrest, there have also been increases to the minimum wage figures in many regions.

No independent trade unions are allowed. Organisers of workers’ groups or protests are often arrested, and some are sentenced to terms of imprisonment (officially called “reform through labour”, or “lao gai”) after criminal trials that fall well short of international standards. Others can be assigned to terms of “re-education through labour”, an administrative process which bypasses the few safeguards of the criminal justice system. Strikers often are detained for a few days or weeks to avoid any risk of martyrdom for long- term detainees. The fear of detention also makes negotiations between workers’ representatives and the authorities and employers extremely difficult.
The continued use and abuse of extensive state secrets legislation including laws classifying labour-related statistics as state secrets means that labour activists can be charged with “disclosing state secrets” for their work.

Reports continue of poor working conditions, including the denial of basic trade union rights and freedom of association freedom of association The right to form and join the trade union of one’s choosing as well as the right of unions to operate freely and carry out their activities without undue interference.

See Guide to the ITUC international trade union rights framework in Chinese-owned enterprises, including major state- owned companies. This is of particular concern in the extractive industry and large construction projects in countries such as in Africa but also those in the Middle East. Chinese workers who complain of poor conditions have faced repercussions on their return to China.

The number of strikes - both spontaneous and planned, but without the official recognition recognition The designation by a government agency of a union as the bargaining agent for workers in a given bargaining unit, or acceptance by an employer that its employees can be collectively represented by a union. of the union - has continued to increase, especially among private enterprise workers. Privatisation and the ensuing redundancy it engenders is a major cause of labour unrest for state-owned enterprise workers while low pay, unpaid wages and poor working conditions are among the largest causes of strikes in the private sector. Figures suggest that each day around 1.000 workers are involved in industrial action industrial action Any form of action taken by a group of workers, a union or an employer during an industrial dispute to gain concessions from the other party, e.g. a strike, go-slow or an overtime ban, or a lockout on the part of the employer. in Guangdong Province alone.

Strikes and collective protests are often dispersed violently by armed police, and prominent strikers are picked up by the police and warned or charged with public order offences, traffic violations, breaking the law on parades and demonstrations, or more rarely serious political charges. Companies regularly dismiss and blacklist workers who have led or participated in strikes. In some instances, companies also hire men to beat and threaten workers protesting missing wages or taking other forms of industrial action industrial action Any form of action taken by a group of workers, a union or an employer during an industrial dispute to gain concessions from the other party, e.g. a strike, go-slow or an overtime ban, or a lockout on the part of the employer. , often with deadly results. Strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike organisers and independent labour activists also face the administration threat of re-education through labour. Though in principle limited to three years, in practice these periods of forced labour can be extended without recourse to the criminal justice system.

The increasingly commonplace nature of strikes has meant that despite the ambiguity of their legal position, some local authorities have been less hostile towards strikes, and more strikes appear to be successful. In response to the labour unrest, there have also been increases to the minimum wage figures in many regions.

The All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) is the sole trade union body allowed to exist. Its role and the supervision of higher level branches over lower level branches was strengthened in the 2008 legislation, especially in resolving labour issues and helping promote the nationwide development of a “harmonious society” and a “harmonious workplace”. It works primarily on wage arrear campaigns, membership drives, pushing for wage increases, philanthropic work and encouraging collective consultation with employers and within industrial sectors.

The ACFTU played a significant role in the drafting of the 2008 Labour Contract Law and in implementing regulations, and it continues to focus its efforts on organising organising The process of forming or joining a trade union, or inducing other workers to form or join one. branches in private companies and Asian multinationals.

Production lines were stopped in a strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike at the Foshan Honda plant in May. The strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike led to Foshan Honda eventually offering 1,900 workers in Foshan a 24 to 32% pay raise. The strikers were prepared to accept an increase of their monthly wage by 800 Yuan and nothing less. After an initial strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike on 17 May Honda persuaded the workers to return to work the next day promising to consider the demands. However, when no deal had been struck by 21 May, the workers went back on strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike . Anticipating retaliation and no support from the official trade union, the two workers who led the strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike , Tan Guocheng and Xiao Lang, quit and left the workplace not long after the strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike . The negotiation representatives elected by the workers were also subject to pressure from both management and the government. On 4 June, after negotiations involving the local government in Foshan and Japanese executives, Honda agreed to the large pay raise, though short of the workers’ demands.

In June some 1,500 workers at the Honda Lock factory in Guangdong disrupted production for a week over pay. The dispute was finally resolved with management agreeing to increase wages. Previous strikes at Guangqi Honda were also resolved. In July, strikes broke out at another Honda parts factory, Sumitec Co. in Foshan, after workers demanded higher pay rates which they had calculated after researching comparative rates in the region. They also asked the company to apologise over its threats to fire 90 workers involved in the complaint and to promise not to lay off any employees for the next two years.

Strikers were also calling for the election of workers’ own representatives and the re-election of trade union officials after the union had done nothing to support them, siding instead with management. With the intervention of the upper level trade union, re-elections of the trade union officers were held at the Foshan Honda plant after the strike strike The most common form of industrial action, a strike is a concerted stoppage of work by employees for a limited period of time. Can assume a wide variety of forms.

See general strike, intermittent strike, rotating strike, sit-down strike, sympathy strike, wildcat strike .

Hundreds of further strikes were reported during May, June and July in car manufacturing and electronics in the south but also in Shanghai and Tianjin, and included strikes at other Honda and Toyota factories.

In August, a student part-time worker at a Coca-Cola’s bottling plant in Zhejiang was beaten after asking for wage arrears. The student was employed by a labour contract agency and Coca-Cola therefore attempted to deny responsibility for the incident. A Hong Kong labour group reported that almost 50% of workers at the factory were employed by agencies but many worked full time contrary to new laws governing the use of contract labour. The use of subcontracted short term labour is growing.