"Every month we pay five yuan out of our pockets to the union, but I don't know what for," fumed a worker at the Honda Auto Parts factory in Foshan , Guangdong, where workers went on strike last month. Workers at the factory, which employs about 1,900 people, downed tools to demand a pay rise. Things turned sour when representatives of the local branch of the official Communist Party-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) stepped in to mediate but ended up scuffling with workers. Some workers said union staff had beaten them. "That was bizarre," said the worker, referring to the incident. "I don't know who those people were and I don't know what they do."

They are the engine behind China's decades-long economic miracle: factory workers earning meager wages to ensure that the nation's exports are sold at unbeatable prices. But a strike at Honda Motor Co. and a rash of worker suicides at one of the world's largest electronic-components plants in recent weeks have highlighted the challenges China will face as it continues to rely on cheap labor.

Andy Stern, the head of the Services Employees International Union who revitalised the American labour movement over the past 20 years, announced his retirement 15 April. In an interview with Ezra Klein, Mr Stern talks about how globalisation has affected labour and trade unionism.

The Guangzhou federation of trade unions is investigating why a trade union official at a Japanese owned company in the city recommended that a victim of sexual harassment be sacked. The 28 year-old office worker (Ms A) was dismissed in January this year after complaining about the blatant sexual harassment of her Japanese boss, which was caught on camera.

In early November 2009, CLB Director Han Dongfang was interviewed by Stephen Sackur for the BBC’s flagship news program, Hard Talk. The program was shown on BBC World News and the BBC News channel on 25 November.

On 27 July, the municipal government of Xian formally banned a local workers’ rights group that was seeking, but never obtained, official recognition of its status as an enterprise restructuring watchdog.

The death of Chen Guojun at the hands of angry workers at the Tonghua Steel works on 24 July prompted a flurry of comment and speculation in the Chinese media. There was one issue however that everyone seemed to agree on; namely the need to better protect the rights and interests of workers during the process of state-owned enterprise reform - the only question that remained was how.

China Labour Bulletin appears in the following article. Copyright remains with the original publisher.

30 July 2009. Beijing.
From The Economist Print Edition

What lies behind the gruesome death of a manager at Tonghua Iron and Steel?

CLB looks at how the workers’ movement in China has developed over the last two years, how the government has responded to it, and why the official trade union has been unable to play a positive role in it. Photo by Saad Akhtar

Trade union officials in the central province of Shaanxi have threatened the founders of a new workers’ rights group, saying it is a “reactionary organization” (反动组织) that could harm China’s “Harmonious Society,” Radio Free Asia reported on 29 June. More than 380 workers from some 20 enterprises in Shaanxi applied to the provincial Party committee and trade union federation to set up the Shaanxi Enterprise Union Rights Defence Representative Congress (陕西企（事）业工会维权代表大会).