Chinese Workers Extorting China Operations
June 10th, 2010
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An American friend recently told me that a Western GM he knows had two of his operators openly revolt. The GM’s plant is in China, and is not very large: it only has a couple operators to run its machines. The operators wanted a huge salary increase, or, they threatened, they would walk out. My American friend, who’s lived and worked in China more than ten years now, suggested to the GM he let the operators walk. “Or, to show them who’s in charge” my friend added, “sack one guy and give the other guy a pay raise.”
Chinese over the past ten years of their boom time have been quick to play the “resignation card.” The couple times it’s been played on me as a China operations manager I’ve simply responded, “When will you be leaving, then?” Of course, they typically over-estimate their value in the organization, and are heart-warmingly shocked when their manager has not only accepted their resignation, but is helping them out the door. Usually the kind of people that play that sort of extortion card are the ones that were not very helpful in the company to begin with.
It’s inevitable that more employees throughout China will attempt to stagger their employers with walk-outs, real and threatened. The Taiwanese and Hong Kong investors deserve it: they have a terrible reputation in China for low paying, low-lying bamboo ceilings that keep Chinese staff static in an employment crouch. The Japanese and the Koreans have slightly better reputations – but only just so. The Western companies are in better stead, because they predominantly pay their workers better than their Asian counterparts and provide better working conditions in general. However, Chinese workers in general are quick “when given a nose, to take the face” – as the Chinese saying goes. Western companies, then, need to do their due diligence on market rates for staffing levels. And hold tight to them.
Related posts:
Managing the Return to Normalcy
There’s No Place Like Home: Worker Shortages
