China leader calls for better labour conditions as Honda workers suspend strike

ERJ staff report (AN)

Zhongshan, China - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao urged better treatment of the nation's vast army of migrant labourers as employees at a Honda Motor Co. factory suspended the latest strike that has laid bare growing worker assertiveness.

The strike at the factory making locks for Honda vehicles is the latest in an outburst of labour disputes to hit factories in southern China's Pearl River Delta, an industrial zone that makes nearly a third of the country's exports, by workers demanding a greater piece of China's growing economic wealth.

If it spreads, the ripples of unrest could present hard choices for China's ruling Communist Party, which has vowed to raise the incomes of hundreds of millions of farmers and migrant workers, but also wants to keep export-driven industry humming and stifle any threats to top-down Party control.

In the most high-level comments to touch on migrant worker conditions since the strikes broke out, Premier Wen said he recognized that a new generation moving from poor villages to work in factories and on building sites would not be satisfied with the same tough conditions their parents endured.

"Rural migrant workers are the main army of the contemporary Chinese industrial workforce. Our wealth and our tall buildings are all distillations of your hard work and sweat," Wen told a group of migrant workers in Beijing on Monday, the official People's Daily reported on Tuesday.

"Your labour is a glorious thing, and it should be respected by society," he added. "The government and all parts of society should treat young migrant workers as they would treat their own children."

Wen's published comments did not directly address the recent labour unrest. But he told a group of young and vocal migrant workers that he "understood" their complaints about demanding conditions, long hours, and drab lives.

At the Honda Lock factory, one of the last where a strike has yet to be resolved, hundreds of workers streamed back to work on a drizzly morning in the South China city of Zhongshan.

Their return on Tuesday temporarily ended a work stoppage that began nearly a week ago when hundreds of the plant's 1,500 workers went on strike.

Some said they had agreed to come back until Friday, when management has promised to give a new offer on their wage demands. Management had previously offered a raise of 100 yuan ($15) per month in wages and another 100 yuan in allowances, but most workers rejected the offer as too low.

"If it's a small increase (on Friday), we'll probably go on strike again," said one young woman arriving for work.

From Automotive News (A Crain publication)