![[CLNT]](../../site-design/img/logo.png){kind=logo}
18 July 2010
…Click here to download this introduction in PDF format CLNT_Honda_intro.pdf One of the most … interesting dimensions of the recent strikes at three Honda auto components factories in the Pearl … River Delta region has been workersβ clearly articulated demand for their enterprise unions to be … elected by and accountable to workers. Their demands are uncommon, but not unprecedented. Back in … 2006, workers at the Ole Wolff electronics factory fought for a workersβ elected union in Yantai. …
http://www.clntranslations.org/article/56/honda
09 May 2010
…Click here to download this introduction in PDF format CLNT_LiuRongli_intro.pdf Since the second … half of the 1990s, China has been through waves of privatization of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) … in a drive to pave the way for a market economy. Previous issues of CLNT have focused on state … workersβ resistance to such cases of privatization such as the recent Tonghua Steel incident. This … issue will look at an interesting case where an ordinary worker has been persistently and creatively …
http://www.clntranslations.org/article/54/liu-rongli
04 March 2010
…Click here to download this introduction in PDF format CLNT_Tonghua_INTRO.pdf One the biggest … events in recent Chinese labor history was the workersβ protest at the Liaoning Iron and Steel … Plants. In this issue CLNT draws attention to yet another protest that also involved state workers … – the Tonghua Steel protest of 2009 in Changchun City, Jilin Province in northeast China that … was followed by another one in Linzhou Steel in Henan Province. How should we view this new wave of …
http://www.clntranslations.org/article/52/tonghua
21 October 2009
…Click here to download this introduction in PDF format … http://www.clntranslations.org/file_download/89 Much is written about the trade union in China, but … how much do we know about how it actually operates inside workplaces, and how it negotiates with … private enterprises over wages and conditions for workers? The Wal-Mart company-wide collective … bargaining agreement was one such insight into the All China Federation of Trades Unionβs (ACFTU) …
http://www.clntranslations.org/article/49/wenling
16 June 2009
…In this short installment of China Labor News Translations, we bring you the story of the dismissal … of union chair from a hotel building owned by the Guangdong Federation of Trade Unions (GDFTU). This … profoundly ironic and deeply troubling story exploded in the Guangzhou media last month, and in … addition to some excellent reporting, there have been a number of high quality op-ed pieces harshly … criticizing the behavior of hotel management and the trade union. The story of Liu Yongyi, trade …
http://www.clntranslations.org/article/39/dismissal-of-union-chair
18 May 2009
…The attached document is a translation of the collective agreement in effect between one of the … individual unionized Wal-Mart stores in China and the responsible local trade union committee. It … represents the template agreement that has been followed by all of the unionized Wal-Mart stores in … China since July 2008. To put this agreement in global perspective, there is not a single collective … agreement at any Wal-Mart store in the USA, while in Canada the only existing agreement covering 180 …
http://www.clntranslations.org/article/38/wal-mart-contract
10 March 2009
…A union struggle for union self-determination continues In October 2008, CLNT covered the case of … the Ole Wolff (Yantai) Trade Union, or OWYTU. The case was unique in several ways – the … workersβ tenacity in establishing their own union, in choosing their own union leadership, in … withstanding employer retaliation, in achieving a sympathetic local profile in the media and in … successfully forging solidarity links to the Danish trade union in the employerβs home country. For …
http://www.clntranslations.org/article/37/ole-wolff-2
12 January 2009
…Download this introduction in PDF format CLNT_taxi_strike_INTRO In this issue of China Labor News … Translations, we bring to you an extended article which originally appeared in China Newsweek on 19 … November. This βFocus on Taxi Driversβ includes two pieces on taxi driver strikes, one Hainan … provinceβs Sanya and another one in Chongqing in Sichuan province. In November and early December, … there was an astonishing outbreak of strike activity among taxi drivers throughout China. While this …
http://www.clntranslations.org/article/36/taxi-drivers-strike
16 October 2008
…The case of Ole Wolff (Yantai) Electronics Ltd This case of unusual rank and file union activism in … China can be seen as both good and bad news. The good news is that, in the North-Eastern Chinese … port city of Yantai there are workersβ willing to struggle for two years for their right to form … their own union that will stand up for their rights. The bad news is that this struggle has taken a … heavy toll on union activists, at least seven of whom have been fired because of their union …
http://www.clntranslations.org/article/35/workers-fight-to-save-their-union-activists
22 September 2008
…Disappointing news emerged on 17 September, that Gao Haitao – the only known Wal-Mart trade … union leader to have actively stood up for his membersβ interests, and the hero of Wal-Mart workers … in the nation – has resigned from his position out of frustration over Wal-Martβs refusal to … enter into genuine collective bargaining. On 14 July this year, the All China Federation of Trade … Unions (ACFTU) concluded the first collective union contract with Wal-Mart, in Shenyang city, in the …
20 August 2008
…Two years after the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) accomplished a breakthrough to set … up workplace unions in Wal-Mart stores, on 11 June this year, after holding a meeting in Beijing, it … announced that it would immediately launch a campaign to set up unions in at least 80 percent of the … Fortune 500 company headquarters and branches. Up until now only some 50 percent of these companies … have unions. This means that, including unions in these companyβs branches, more than 10,000 …
04 May 2008
…The trade unions in Chinese Wal-Mart stores are often dismissed as hollow shells set up by the All … China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) without workersβ involvement. But through monitoring … Chinese media and online blog discussions among Chinese Wal-Mart employees, CLNT has found workers … who take an active interest in their store union, and at least in one case, of an elected rank and … file trade union chair using the trade union platform to actively defend workersβ interests. While …
http://www.clntranslations.org/article/30/draft
25 August 2007
…Peter Lee, an independent labour researcher and activist in China’s Fujian province has … provided us with a rare insight into the mid to long-term effects of so-called Corporate Social … Responsibility (CSR) projects adopted by major Western brands in an attempt to improve working … conditions in their supply factories. Lee’s is not the first critique of such CSR programs, … but it is possibly the first to chart their mid- to long-term effects in China. Peter Lee’s …
13 August 2007
…In March this year KFC, McDonalds and Pizza Hut were discovered by reporters of a Chinese newspaper … to be paying illegally low wages to their part-time and casual βwork-studyβ students in Guangzhou … City (see CLNT posting βWestern Fast Food Chainsβ violate minimum wage lawsβ). After much outcry … from the public the issue fizzled out after a month because the two companies were able to make use … of a loophole in the Chinese legal system that exempts βwork-studyβ students from the jurisdiction …
http://www.clntranslations.org/article/22/first-kfc-trade-union-branch-established
07 May 2007
…11 rubbish workers in BaoAn district in outer Shenzhen have announced to their boss that they want … to start a union at their workplace. The initiative came from a 56 year old man, who has been … involved in a union before at a garment factory where he worked as a warehouse manager. In one day, … he rallied together 10 of his co-workers – four men and six women, with an average age of 50 … years and very little formal education. Five of them are illiterate. According to this very brief …
http://www.clntranslations.org/article/16/cleaners-want-a-union-to-protect-their-rights
21 March 2007
…The ACFTU uses new grassroots organizing techniques to take on resistant foreign enterprises This … first round of translations from China Labor News Translations includes three Chinese newspaper … articles, all related to recent trade union development in China. They report the All-China … Federation of Trade Union’s (ACFTU’s) now famous campaign to establish trade union … branches in Wal-Mart and Foxconn. 1. ‘Laborβs’ Breakthrough at Wal-Mart 2. Talks between …
http://www.clntranslations.org/article/4/wal-mart