The Financial Times recently published two articles about the increasing number of protests in China after the Foxconn suicides and Honda plant shut-downs spotlighted employee dissatisfaction with salary levels and working conditions. I had written a few posts back how some smaller Western companies in the Suzhou area are being affected by the confidence-building actions down South; however, the FT’s coverage indicates something slightly different afoot in Suzhou’s industrial actions.

“Workers born after the 1980s and 1990s are concerned not just about pay but about safety, rights and respect,” Dong Baohua, professor of law at East China University of Politics and Law, told the FT. A strike leader at Suzhou NSG said “That strike is about pay, ours is about safety conditions,” referring to discontented worker actions in South China.  I would go so far as to proffer that Suzhou is also one of the first manufacturing centers in China to upgrade its industrial policy to attract higher-value manufacturing, R&D and outsourcing services. It began those efforts as early as five years ago: one of the reasons for the outbreak of green algae on Lake Tai (Taihu) – Suzhou pushed lower-end manufacturing westward – to cities like Yixing and Wuxi – which would take the dirtier, more labor-intensive industries like textile and plastics manufacture. Suzhou industries typically have workers with far less education levels than higher-value producers and service sector offerings. Hence, a greater focus in the Greater Shanghai region on quality-of-life aspects of work.

Interestingly, a feature protests in the Yangtze River and Pearl River Deltas share is an extreme distrust workers have for the Party-sponsored and controlled unions in the companies. The trade unions are more a function of Party control and monitoring in the Party’s interests than in either advocating employer or employee concerns. “Low union credibility is contributing to unstable industrial relations, labor analysts say, adding that more disputes are inevitable.”

Of course, further protests are inevitable for plant managers who insist on keeping their heads buried in the sand, instead of acting proactively to address possible worker concerns.

Further reading: FT

Related posts:

Chinese Workers Extorting China Operations

China is Cracking Up

Managing the Return to Normalcy

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