Protests have erupted over the last week in a wide range of industries and locations across China, indicating that worker unrest is far from confined to just the manufacturing heartland of the Pearl River Delta.

China Labour Bulletin’s fourth in-depth report on the workers’ movement examines the trends and developments in worker activism in China from 2009 to 2011. Photo by Chad Ingraham available at flickr.com

An electrician from Heilongjiang spent more than a decade battling with his boss, local government officials and the courts trying to get compensation for a work-related injury that left him with severe burns and a Grade 5 disability.

Han Dongfang talks to Liu Xiangdong, who is fighting a lonely battle against the might of his former employer, a state-owned steel works in north-eastern China and the local government that is dependent on it for employment and taxes.

After being hailed as heroes for braving snow and blizzards to get southern China’s electricity supply back on line during the big freeze of 2008, a group of power workers were cheated out of their jobs, denied judicial redress and eventually forced into a desperate act of self-mutilation in Beijing

Over the last ten years, hundreds of employees at an Inner Mongolian state farm have lost their land and livelihood as managers sold off pasture for profit. Workers who protested were harassed and even detained by local officials and later forced into hiding.

Powerful business interests in China and Hong Kong have effectively blocked recent labour reforms, raising the likelihood of further bouts of wildcat strikes and other unrest, a report said Wednesday. The China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based group that monitors labour conditions in China, said Hong Kong business leaders recently helped block proposed legislation in neighbouring Guangdong province that would have enabled workers to initiate and join in collective bargaining with management.

A new report examines how, why and when, during the process of economic reform, the Chinese government ceded exclusive power to management, with workers left out in the cold. Photo by onekel.

More than 20 female workers were detained after police attempted to break up a two-week-long strike at a former state-owned cotton mill in Pingdingshan, Henan. The workers, eight of whom were listed by name, were accused of “disrupting production” (扰乱生产), according to reports circulating on the Chinese internet. Up to 3,000 police officers moved in to clear the factory gate on 1 June, which had been blocked by striking workers since 14 May. Some of the 5,000 workers have reportedly returned to work but the majority remains on strike.

The number of coal mine deaths in China has risen for the first time since 2002. There were 592 fatalities related to coal mine accidents in the first three months of this year, compared with 509 in the first quarter last year, the China Daily reported today. The sharp rise in the number of fatalities can be partly explained by the low demand for coal at the height of the global economic crisis early last year, but also because of the widespread renovation and construction of new mines to meet higher demand this year. According to official figures, as of 1 March, there were 7,939 mines under construction or renovation.