Honda China plant resumes work; Friday deadline looms

ERJ staff report (AN)

ZHONGSHAN, China (Reuters) -- Workers at a factory making locks for Honda Motor Co. cars in China were largely back on the job early Tuesday, temporarily ending a six-day strike as negotiators tried to reach a new agreement on pay.v

The strike is the latest in a series to hit factories around southern China's Pearl River Delta and a few other regions by workers demanding a greater piece of China's growing economic wealth.

The string of strikes, most of which have been resolved, prompted the AFL-CIO, the largest US labour group, to consider asking President Barack Obama's administration to investigate whether China gains an unfair trade advantage by denying workers' rights.

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

Their return 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.

New offer

Honda spokesman Hirotoshi Sat said it was also the Japanese company's understanding workers had returned for three days ahead of an expected new offer. He had no further details.

Other workers said they had agreed to return only grudgingly, and might not do much inside the factory.

One, surnamed Zeng, said a senior manager from Guangqi Honda, one of Honda's two car-making joint ventures in China, had come to the factory on Monday to ease tensions. At one point, hundreds of strikers had gathered outside the factory gates while riot police sealed off the road leading away from the plant.

"The mood among workers is calmer today," said a young male worker dressed in a T-shirt outside the factory. "But that may change on Friday."

The factory has continued a hiring campaign that some workers had seen as one of several intimidation tactics used to try and get them to return to work.

About 50 potential recruits, mostly migrant workers from interior provinces, hopped aboard a large coach parked outside the factory gates in search of work.

"Yes, we're looking for work," said one from Guangxi province, boarding the coach as police watched on.

labour unrest has rippled across some foreign-owned factories in China as a new generation of migrant workers presses for more of the nation's growing wealth.

The outburst of strikes continues a pattern of recent years that took a pause at the height of the global financial crisis.

From Automotive News (A Crain publication)