Honda puts food down over China seatlement
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| photo reuters |
“I came here yesterday to register,” said one applicant, Wei Zhenhua, as he waited outside the main gates of Honda Lock in Zhongshan, a factory town in Guangdong province. “This is a good place to work. A lot of people wanted jobs here last year but there weren’t many openings.”
Mr Wei’s wish came true at about 8:30am on Monday morning. Huang Zhengdong, an executive with the lock factory’s personnel department, ordered about 100 job seekers to queue up in two lines, one for men and the other women. “If you didn’t register with us yesterday please step out of line,” Mr Huang said, before marching the recruits off to their new jobs.
The twin blitz marked the possible end to Honda’s protracted China labour crisis over the past month, during which employees at three separate components plants launched a series of industrial actions. The first two strikes, at transmission and exhaust component suppliers in Foshan, another Guangdong manufacturing city, also forced the closure of the company’s larger car assembly plants.
The industrial action at Honda Lock peaked on June 12 when hundreds of workers refused management entreaties to enter plant grounds and attend a meeting there, in a sometimes comical stand-off that highlighted how difficult communication with labour can be in a country where independent unions are banned.
Coming soon after a high-profile series of Chinese worker suicides at Foxconn, the Taiwanese contract electronics manufacturer, the Honda strikes further increased global attention on the growing restlessness of a new generation of Chinese migrant workers.
According to Honda executives, more than 80 per cent of the lock factory’s workforce accepted a Rmb200 ($29) increase in monthly salary and benefits – equivalent to a 20 per cent wage rise for those workers previously on an entry salary of Rmb930. Employees had demanded a 70 per cent increase to Rmb1,600 a month.
A large notice posted outside Honda Lock’s gates – and signed by the factory’s Japanese general manager – also promised workers at least two days of overtime a month and extra pay for hours worked from Saturday afternoon, when some operations resumed, through to Tuesday.
Holdouts were warned that they would be “dealt with according to relevant national laws, regulations and company policies”.
“It’s a real pity – we came one day too late,” said Xu Huifang, an envious employee at a nearby electronics factory, as she and her friends watched Mr Huang’s charges line up. “I wasn’t concerned about the strike. It has nothing to do with us.”
As China’s export sector recovers from the depths of the global financial crisis, demand for labour has increased workers’ bargaining power. But brand-name companies such as Honda still have plenty of leverage. Like Ms Xu, many migrant workers are keen for an opportunity to upgrade employers.
In one recruitment flyer, Honda Lock said it offered “good conditions, many benefits and always pays on time”. It added that average monthly salaries, including bonuses and benefits, came to about Rmb2,000.
Dozens of other would-be Honda Lock employees gathered under an abandoned company recruitment tent.
“I’m very sorry but we have stopped hiring for the time being,” Zhao Xiaobo, another personnel executive, told the crowd. “We may have another recruitment drive on the 20th.” They refused to disperse, however, until they were allowed to complete application forms.
One Honda Lock employee, who asked not to be named, refused to report back to work and surveyed the scene glumly. “This isn’t any good,” he said as he watched the scramble for job forms. “They are only offering Rmb200. We can’t accept that.”
By 10am, however, the striker’s resolve had begun to crack. He pushed his bike to the factory, clipped on his worker ID and walked through the gates. A manager promptly tapped his watch, scolded the striker for being late and told him to go home. “Maybe they’ll let me come back this afternoon,” he said.
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