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Vol. 80/No. 17 May 2, 2016
Labor actions rise in China as bosses slash jobs, wages
BY EMMA JOHNSON
Strikes and labor protests increased sharply in China last year, as
workers took action against unpaid wages, massive layoffs and factory
closures. Under the impact of a worldwide slowdown of capitalist
production and trade, the Chinese rulers, like bosses everywhere, attack
workers’ wages and working conditions. In doing so, they risk provoking
what they are mortally afraid of: a growing movement and organization
within a working class numbering hundreds of millions.
China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based workers’ rights group, recorded
2,700 strikes and protests throughout China last year, twice as many as
in 2014. The overwhelming majority took place in construction,
manufacturing and mining, with unpaid wages being the single most common
reason. In the garment and shoe industries there were numerous actions
opposing factory closures and relocations.
The manufacturing explosion has created a huge modern working class in
China. Hundreds of millions have moved from rural areas into rapidly
growing urban centers since the government turned to capitalist market
methods and increased foreign investment starting in the late 1970s.
Many got jobs in factories that employ tens of thousands. In the
beginning this working class had one foot in the village and one in the
city. But today most workers were born in the city or have lived there
for decades.
Slashing jobs in coal and steel
State enterprises accounted for some 40 percent of the country’s
industrial output and employed around 37 million people as of 2013.
Officials project slashing this workforce by 5 million to 6 million in
the next couple years, the Associated Press reported March 2.
Yin Weimin, minister for human resources and social security, announced
Feb. 29 plans to lay off 1.3 million coal miners and 500,000
steelworkers in the coming years. That’s on top of 890,000 jobs slashed
from the coal industry since 2013.
The government has set aside $15 billion it says will help these workers
find new jobs. What happened at Longmay Group coal mines in the
northeastern province of Heilongjiang shows why officials are nervous
about workers’ response. In September the company announced that it
would lay off 100,000 workers, some 40 percent of the workforce at 42
mines.
In March, provincial Gov. Lu Hao bragged that Longmay was a good example
of how industries could be restructured and said its miners weren’t owed
back wages. This provoked protests by workers whose pay had been shorted
since November. On March 11, 1,000 people marched with banners reading,
“We must live, we must eat” and “Lu Hao is a liar” to rally in front of
the mining authority in the town of Shuangyashan. The next day Lu Hao
admitted he was wrong and by March 15 workers said the provincial
government had paid the wages through January and promised February
wages would be paid soon.
In recent years workers in China have won improvements in wages and
conditions, a result of a labor shortage during the industrial boom as
well as their growing capacity to apply their social weight in militant
strikes and protests. These advances are now under attack by the
government and capitalist bosses.
During the annual gathering in March of China’s legislature, the
National People’s Congress, Finance Minister Lou Jiwei declared recent
pay raises “unsustainable” because they outstrip productivity increases.
He said it should be easier for bosses to fire workers. And he
complained that a 2007 labor code “is based on fixed working hours,
which does not fit in with the model of labor flexibility.”
In Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province in the south, several
hundred workers at the state-owned Angang Lianzhong steel plant went on
strike in February protesting plans to cut wages in half and extend the
workday to 12 hours for some workers.
In Liaoning province the state-owned Benxi Iron and Steel company has
cut wages substantially and many employees have been laid off. One
worker told CNN he’d been sacked and then rehired as a day worker,
meaning he no longer gets company health insurance or benefits.
Growing income inequalities make it difficult to sell the idea to
workers that they need to tighten their belt. “We ordinary workers are
doing much more work than the management and yet they can get paid
almost 10 times more than us,” a worker in Chongqing, where protests
have surged in recent months, told China Labour Bulletin.
Related articles:
Verizon strikers: Time to say no to concessions!
Stand in solidarity with 40,000 strikers
Teamsters hold DC rally to demand halt to pension cuts
On the Picket Line
Protests across country demand $15/hour and union
New decline looms within worldwide capitalist crisis
Fight for pensions for entire working class
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