Archive for 8 Energy Intensive Industries

Implications of the Strike in Honda Auto Parts Manufacturing Co Ltd (CHAM)

Abstract The low wage regime in CHAM is not a single isolated example but the general condition in where CHAM is located. It is the result and the reproduction of the low-wage-based development model that Guangdong province has been relying on for achieving the fast speed economic development in the past 30 years.
Author ITUC/GUF Hong Kong Liaison Office (IHLO)
Publisher
Link http://www.ihlo.org/LRC/ACFTU/000710.html
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8 Energy Intensive Industries, 8.5.4 Automobile

A Political Economic Analysis of the Strike in Honda and the auto parts industry in China

Abstract The strike that broke out in Honda Auto Parts Manufacturing Co Ltd in Foshan city of Guangdong province on 17 May dragged on for nearly one and a half month ending in early July. The strike involved nearly the whole work force on the shopfloor who are mainly migrant workers. By laying down their tools for 4 days, the workers in CHAM brought the production of 4 Honda assembly subsidiaries to a halt causing the company to lose 220 million Yuan by estimates. And for the first time in the industrial actions taken by the migrant workers, the strike articulated clearly the demands for reforming the only legal trade union, the All China Federation of Trade Unions. A paradigm shift in the Chinese labour struggle is expected and it is likely to be one that is led by the domestic migrant workers for economic justice and associational rights. The IHLO examines the causes as well as the implications of the strike in CHAM and finds a number of issues that should draw the interests of the international trade union and labour movement in their analyses and strategizing for organizing the auto industry and supporting the Chinese labour struggles.
Author ITUC/GUF Hong Kong Liaison Office (IHLO), July 2010
Publisher
Link http://www.ihlo.org/LRC/W/000710.pdf
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8 Energy Intensive Industries, 8.5.4 Automobile

Collective Awakening and Action of Chinese Workers, The 2010 Auto Workers’ Strike and its Effects

Abstract “On May 17, 2010, a strike erupted at the Honda parts plant in Nanhai, a city located in the Chinese center of the manufacturing industry in Guangdong province. More than 1,800 workers participated, and the strike disrupted all of Honda’s spare parts production facilities in China and lead to the paralyzing of Honda’s car production in China. On May 28, the strike wave spread to a Hyundai car factory and on May 29 to US-American Chrysler’s joint venture Jeep factory, both in Beijing. On June 18, Toyota’s second car plant in Tianjin had to close, due to a strike. In July, the Chinese media were universally asked to restrict their coverage of the strikes, but the strikes in the auto industry still did not stop. Prior to July 22, at least two of Honda’s joint venture factories saw strikes. The organizers and most important participants of these strikes were migrant workers (nongmingong, peasant workers). During the strike wave they showed very strong collective consciousness and capacity for collective action.
Author Wang Kan, Social History Online, December 2011
Publisher
Link http://duepublico.uni-duisburg-essen.de/servlets/DerivateServlet/Derivate-29001/03_WangKan_Strike.pdf
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8 Energy Intensive Industries, 8.5.4 Automobile

Restructuring of the Honda Auto Parts Union in Guongdong, China: A 2-year Assessment of the 2010 Strike

Abstract Since the 1990s, Chinese workers at state-owned enterprises had put up many fights against privatization but with lackluster results. The migrant workers, on the other hand, have mostly been a silent majority, putting up with appalling working conditions. Though resistances among some of them have often arisen, most of these are spontaneous and not organized. However, the CHAM workers had been successful not only in winning an increase in their wages but also pushing the government and the company to agree to a revamp of the workplace union after a 19-day strike in 2010. The CHAM case attracted international concern on the potential rise of the Chinese workers’ power and this also pushed the ACFTU to make further reform. Yet, the question remains— does the re-elected Honda trade union really represent the workers? In this article, we will reveal the truth about the ACFTU’s engineered reform of the Honda trade union through workers interviews and data analysis.
Author Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society (WUSA) Vol. 15, Issue 4 28/12/2012
Publisher
Link http://globalmon.pixelactionstudio.com/sites/default/files/shares/images/Restructuring%20of%20the%20Honda%20Auto%20Parts%20Union%20in%20Guongdong%20China%20A%202-year%20Assessment%20of%20the%202010%20Strike.pdf
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8 Energy Intensive Industries, 8.5.4 Automobile

Industrial Sectors: Auto Parts : Honda and the auto parts industry in China

Abstract In automobile manufactures, the cost of the power control is estimated to share about 20% of the total production cost and more than 30% of the profit . Compared with other auto companies in China, Honda and her Chinese partner Guangzhou Automobile Group (GAC) are reported to have the highest per car profit margin. This is largely earned from the margins gained in the auto parts procurement in China. It is estimated that up to 80% of the total production cost of Honda’s automobiles and motorcycles is spent on the sourcing of the auto parts  and the local sourcing rate of Honda is one of the highest in the industry up to 78% in some car models. These include the sourcing of the assembled power engines and transmissions from Honda’s own subsidiaries in China via intra-firm trading and from the first-tier suppliers that have long business relations with Honda to follow and build supplier plants within the vicinity of Honda’s assembly plants in China. When Honda was beginning to globalise its production bases in key regional markets in the 1990s, the building of local auto parts production bases within the vicinity of the assembly plants is an important strategy. In China Honda has, compared with her competitors, a high in-house and local sourcing ratio in her manufacturing bases enabling direct control over the costs and the smooth running of the Honda lean production.
Author ITUC/GUF Hong Kong Liaison Office (IHLO)
Publisher
Link http://www.ihlo.org/LRC/I/000710.html
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8 Energy Intensive Industries, 8.5.4 Automobile

Deconstructing Construction in China

Abstract This short paper aims to summarise the current condition of China’s construction industry from a labour perspective. The industry has been indispensable to the government’s overall economic strategy over the last 25 years of reform and has played a central role in employment policy, urban housing reform and large-scale infrastructure projects. How the construction industry is managed also has an indirect impact on migration policy, property management, urbanisation, anti-corruption campaigns and even education and medical reforms. Given the centrality of the industry to the economy’s overall health as well as the labour-related issues that the re-structuring of the industry has thrown up, it is surprising how little non-academic attention it has attracted. This paper will begin with a brief profile of the industry at present and the direction it is likely to go in. A middle section will summarise the workforce and employment structure in the context of the subcontracting system. Unfortunately we do not have space to examine the latter in the detail it deserves. The final section will look at labour relations through the prism of a major issue facing workers on site: wage arrears. Apologies are offered in advance for failing to cover, other than in passing, health and safety issues. Again space precludes an adequate appraisal and while there are obviously specific reasons why  China’s construction industry offers the second most dangerous jobs – after mining – the absence of effective and participatory trade union power is at the core of all bad health and safety practice, regardless of industry or sector.  We conclude by arguing that there is an urgent need for imaginative policies from the central government. The emergence of a complex system of sub-contracting, the continuing discriminatory environment that building workers find themselves in, and the industry’s poor health and safety performance are just some of the problems demanding powerful trade union action. The government must apply itself to the task of creating the space for construction workers to organise, both in the official trade union and – crucially – beyond it. It is only through genuine and participatory representation that the stability which both the government and construction workers are clearly seeking will emerge.
Author ITUC/GUF Hong Kong Liaison Office (IHLO)
Publisher
Link http://www.ihlo.org/LRC/I/180507.html
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8 Energy Intensive Industries, 8.5.3 Construction

Paying the Price: Worker Unrest in Northeast China

Abstract From March through May 2002, well-organized workers’ protests in three cities in northeastern China brought unprecedented numbers of disaffected, laid-off, and unemployed workers into the streets. In an area of high unemployment, extensive poverty, conspicuous wealth, and what is widely viewed as endemic corruption, workers protested non-payment of back wages and pensions, loss of benefits, insufficient severance pay, maneuvers intended to bypass elected workers congresses, and unfulfilled government promises to help the unemployed find jobs. Like previous demonstrations in other areas of the northeastern “rust-belt,” the protests emerged from several years of privatization, down-sizing, and bankruptcies of state-owned enterprises in which workers had been promised lifetime employment and broad benefits. The protests in 2002, however, involved tens of thousands of workers from dozens of factories and mines, and lasted longer than any protests since the violent suppression of the 1989 Democracy Movement. This included protests in the metal sector, the Liaoyang workers, as well as other energy intensive sectors.
Author Human Rights Watch, August 2002
Publisher
Link http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/chinalbr0802.pdf
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8 Energy Intensive Industries, 8.5.2 Metalwork

The Liaoyang Workers Struggle: Portrait of a Movement

Abstract Account of major worker struggles at the Liaoyang Ferroalloy Factory and other metallurgy plants
Author China Labour Bulletin (CLB), July 2003
Publisher
Link http://www.clb.org.hk/en/node/2932
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8 Energy Intensive Industries, 8.5.2 Metalwork

A Cry for Justice: The Voices of Chinese Workers

Abstract The accounts in this book, told in workers’ voices from inside China, are drawn directly from radio interviews by one of the leaders of an independent labour organization in 1989. It includes information about strikes in metallurgy sector.
Author The Albert Shanker Institute, March 2008, A Cry for Justice: The Voices of Chinese Workers
Publisher
Link http://www.shankerinstitute.org/docs/cry-for-justice.pdf
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8 Energy Intensive Industries, 8.5.2 Metalwork

The Restructuring Process at the Liaoyang Fero-alloy Factory and Workers’ Anti-Corruption Struggles

Abstract During the annual meetings of the NPC and CPPCC in Beijing in March 2002, a mass strike erupted in the northeast city of Liaoyang. The strike was mainly initiated by the workers of the Liaoyang Ferroalloy Factory and involved more than ten plants that were slated to be restructured. Thousands of workers participated in the demonstration, and called upon the central government to punish local corrupt officials, protect the assets of state-own enterprises, and maintain workers’ rights. The demonstration lasted for nine days from March 11 to 20. Later four workers’ representatives, including Fuxin Yao and Yunliang Xiao, were arrested by the people’s armed police and police security sent by the Liaoyang city government. They were later charged with the “subversion of State power.”
Author China Left Review, Issue 4, 2011, Liao Yuan,The Restructuring Process at the Liaoyang Fero-alloy Factory and Workers’ Anti-Corruption Struggles
Publisher
Link http://chinaleftreview.org/?p=480
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8 Energy Intensive Industries, 8.5.2 Metalwork