Chinaworks.be: 14 juni 2010
We lezen op www.english.peopledaily.com.cn
Industrial actions, new challenge
facing foreign manufacturers in China
An ongoing labor shutdown at an autoparts facility for the Japanese-based carmaker Honda Motor Co. in southern China's Guangdong Province, which was actually part of a string of strikes at overseas-funded plants since mid May, shed more light on challenges for the survival and development of transnational corporations in China.
According to Chinese experts, the recent series of strikes are challenging the ability of foreign capitalists to maintain peaceful relations with workers, which they believe are key toward the sustainable development of overseas-funded companies on the Chinese mainland.
The walkouts, including three at Honda's auto parts plants in Guangdong, one at a parts supplier in eastern China's Jiangsu Province and another at an industrial sewing machine company, also funded by a Japanese investor in Xi'an, capital city of northwestern China's Shaanxi Province, all found workers demanding increases in pay.
Since China began to reform and open up to the outside world more than 30 years ago, its inexpensive labor force has become one of the major factors in China attracting overseas investment and sharpening its competitive edge on global markets. Chinese workers, who had developed China into a world workshop, were named by Time Magazine as its Men Of The Year in 2009.
However, behind the glory there exists mounting complaints and discontent of Chinese workers.
CONCERNS AND COMPLAINTS OF WORKERS
An ongoing strike over pay entered its fifth day Sunday at Honda Lock (Guangdong) Co., Ltd., a joint venture between the Japanese firm and a local company affiliated with the government in Xiaolan Township.
The lock factory had earlier agreed to increase employees' monthly salaries by 100 yuan (14.6 U.S. dollars) and to raise over-time pay to 50 yuan per day, but the offer fell short of the demand of striking workers, about two-thirds of the factory's total of 1,400 employees, who sought a 500 yuan increase per month.
"Salaries for workers at Chinese automakers now average 3,000 yuan per month. But frontline workers at Honda's suppliers stand at 1,200 per month and even below. It's unfair," Jiang Libiao, an associate professor with the mechanics and auto engineering school of the South China University of Technology based in Guangzhou, the provincial capital of Guangdong, told Xinhua Sunday.
Jiang said for years some overseas-funded companies have maintained frontline employees' wages at the minimum standard, which compelled workers to earn more income through over-time work.
A worker at the Nanhai Honda Auto Parts Manufacturing Company said, on conditions of anonymity, that according to its original pay system, the company allowed workers to have their salary increased by one level every year if they made no manufacturing mistakes. But there were 75 salary levels in total, and this aroused discontent among workers, he told Xinhua.
What made workers more indignant was the "arrogant" attitude of senior foreign corporate executives towards the strikes.
Workers at Honda Lock (Guangdong) Co., Ltd., said they were irritated by two corporate documents demanding a work resumption pledge, which were distributed to them on Friday and threatened to fire workers if they continued their walkout beyond June 15.
Senior executives of Honda Motor Co. had promised to arrive at the auto lock supply company Friday to negotiate with workers, but they failed to appear at the plant.
The pledged move, which, if fulfilled, had come already five days after the beginning of the walkout, probably was delayed by corporate red tape and time-consuming procedures necessary before decisions are made.
However, the delay was understood by Chinese workers as an arrogant attitude by corporate executives and an example of the lack of attention paid to workers' action and complaints.
A similar situation existed in disputes at other Honda suppliers as well as the sewing machine manufacturing company, which added to workers' discontent.
Honda parts suppliers involved in the series of strikes refused any media interviews and fended off any journalists from the plants concerned.
Experts say that in line with traditional Chinese culture, Chinese workers see a quick and timely response by senior executives as an expression of their sincere attitude towards their actions.
"There are some problems in foreign companies' strategies for readjusting industrial relations," said Prof. He Gaochao, who is head of the political science department at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, and is engaged in studies of labor politics and social transformations.
"The corporate executives failed to find a proper way to communicate with workers on strike," he noted.
These foreign executives lacked a basic understanding about Chinese frontline workers and were seen as showing little respect for them. While over-relying on management conceptions and the experience of transnational corporations, the executives are prone to ignore cultural nuances in China and reluctant to effectively cooperate with local governments and trade unions in resolving labor-capital disputes, according to He.
"Currently, it is imperative to establish a reasonable pay distribution system and coordinating channels for industrial relations at foreign-funded companies," He suggested.
According to Wang Hongli with the general trade union of Shenzhen, many foreign-funded companies were reluctant to establish trade unions and some even appointed their senior executives as staff for their trade unions.
The reorganization of trade unions was one of the demands from workers on strike at Honda parts suppliers.
UNLIKELY TO LEAVE CHINA MARKETS
Over approximately the past two decades, foreign-funded companies have helped "Made-in-China" edge into the forefront of the world and have contributed to China's economic growth and created numerous jobs in Chinese markets.
However, experts believe, along with China's economic growth and social changes, transnational corporations need to readjust their operational methods and conceptions.
"Enterprises, foreign-funded ones in particular, have been the major beneficiaries of China's economic growth. They should realize that they would gain more on the Chinese markets, but only on the precondition that they share profits with Chinese consumers and producers," said Xiao Yaofei, deputy head of the research institute of world economy in the Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in Guangzhou.
Yao Jian, spokesperson with the Ministry of Commerce, has said that cheap labor is not, at present, the first advantage for China to attract foreign investment. Salaries in foreign-funded companies will further increase along with the continuous improvement in the rule of law in China.
Foxconn, the world's leading IT contract manufacturer, has doubled pay for workers at its plants in the southern city of Shenzhen in response to repeated worker suicides. Further, Honda's auto parts suppliers involved in strikes have hiked salaries by 30 percent or higher. Also, minimum pay standards for workers in some coastal areas have been raised by 10 to 20 percent.
However, experts believe these moves will not significantly affect the overall profitability of foreign-funded companies as Chinese markets continues to promise enormous profits for them.
For instance, according to Jiang Libiao, labor costs account for 35 to 45 percent of the total cost for vehicle manufacturing in the United States. In comparison, the proportion of labor costs from frontline Chinese workers is less than 10 percent at some foreign-funded companies.
Yu Ju, vice general manager with Foshan Fengfu Autoparts Co., Ltd., a Honda parts supplier which ended a recent three-day strike with a pledge to raise salaries by 366 yuan per month, said that as the world's largest motor vehicle producer and consumer, China has an auto market that remains far from becoming saturated, which means foreign-funded companies would not leave China just because labor costs rise.
Source:Xinhua
