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Zigor Aldama

Correspondent

Àsia

The Chinese workers' revolution

A strike at Honda and a wave of suicides at Foxxcon have led the two multinationals to compromise with the demands of their employees. Does this represent a change in the world’s system of factory production?

Zigor Aldama | Shanghai | 28 june 2010

Photo: Remko Tanis

Even the patience of the long-suffering Chinese worker has a limit. Fed up with their arduous working conditions, employees of Honda in the Asian giant placed an ultimatum on the automotive multinational as well as their government, since it is not usual to allow strikes in a country where trade unions are an organ of official political power. However, 1,900 people in southern China struck on 17 May and managed to stop production at one of the factories of the Japanese power. With this blow, which was repeated twice more, the cheap labor that has characterized the Great Dragon since it began its economic reforms has received its first major victory against their exploiters. Honda has agreed to grant an immediate salary raise of 24%.

It may not look like much when you consider that most of its employees take home just 150 euros per month for working 70 hours a week, including overtime. But it is an important wake-up call for businesses that are installed in China with the intention of ruthlessly squeezing their employees, mostly rural migrants seeking to take a bite of fastest growing economic pie in the world.

Honda's case is not unique. In fact, also in the Pearl River delta, in China’s southeastern region, workers of another multinational have jumped to the front pages of the local and international media. On this occasion, blood has literally stained Foxxcon, a giant Taiwanese company subcontracted to produce the brand new Apple Iphone and Ipad and electronics for brands like Dell and Nokia. So far this year, a dozen workers have decided to commit suicide by jumping from the top of the buildings that make up the spectacular industrial complex where 430,000 people live and work.

The reason they give their co-workers is simple – they could not longer tolerate the draconian conditions under which they lived. However, both the regional government as well as Steve Jobs himself, Apple's CEO, defended Foxxcon’s management and facilities. “Please! They have restaurants, cinemas, hospitals and even swimming pools. For a factory it is great!” Jobs said in a press conference in California.

But Chinese journalists who infiltrated the factory reported on 16-hour days, six days a week, for pay that caresses a hundred euros. Without a doubt, this is a very different picture from the one “leaked” a year ago when, apparently by error, the Iphones made by Foxxcon displayed a default image of one of its employees, whose gentle smile circled the world and became famous. The suicides, however, have had to pile up in order to draw attention.

Apparently, the lack of manpower in southern China, affected by the economic stimulus plan that has created jobs in the places of origin of rural migrants in the central and western regions, is making it difficult for Foxxcon to recruit new hands, which is why their employees are forced to work harder and produce more. In a desperate attempt to resolve the issue and divert media attention, the company has decided to follow in the footsteps of Honda and announced a wage increase of 33%.

The Chinese government is following in the same steps. Beijing City Hall has announced a 20% increase in the minimum wage in the city (currently at 800 yuan, or 90 euros), while other provinces have already taken similar measures, and many more are due to fall like dominoes. Because, after all, the very same employees of Honda and Foxxon recognize they are privileged; worse off are those who work in Chinese businesses for minimum wage. These have no way to exercise their right to strike. It remains to be seen whether the fight now turns towards increasing the eleven days of paid vacation. The revolution of the Chinese proletariat has begun, and the multinationals tremble.

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