Archive for 8.5 Workers in Intensive Energy Industries

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
Attachment Sorry, no attachments exist.
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
Attachment Sorry, no attachments exist.
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
Attachment
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
Attachment
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
Attachment
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
Attachment Sorry, no attachments exist.
8 Energy Intensive Industries, 8.5.2 Metalwork

Report on Industrial Relations and Working Conditions in IMF-related TNCs in China

Abstract The International Metalworkers’ Federation(IMF) commissioned research on industrial relations and working conditions in metal sector transnational companies in China to examine the current situation. The research finds most workers surveyed as part of the study at foreign invested plants in China have very little understanding of what a trade union is or its capacity to represent workers’ interests. The research also found that while working conditions at foreign invested metal sector plants are better than average factory working conditions in China, only one third of factories surveyed had a trade union present. The investigation included research into the working conditions inside 27 factories with foreign investors including Daimler Chrysler, Hyundai, Volkswagen, Toyota, Nokia, Delphi, Bosch, General Electrics, Electrolux, Panasonic and Flexitronics. The research was undertaken by the Hong Kong-based Asian Monitor Research Centre. IHLO was one of the local research partners and IHLO staff formed part of the steering group wroking on the project.
Author Asia Monitor Resource Centre (AMRC) and International Metalworkers’ Federation(IMF)
Publisher
Link http://www.imfmetal.org/files/07050810105979/IMF_china_report_EN.pdf
Attachment
8 Energy Intensive Industries, 8.5.2 Metalwork