Hundreds of workers at an automotive trim company in Shanghai blocked a major highway in the city amid a protest over plans for mass layoffs on Wednesday, RFA Mandarin’s Labor Bulletin reported.
The workers from the state-owned Shanghai Guoli Automotive Leather Decoration Co. scuffled with police as traffic backed up on the Husong Highway, according to video clips of the standoff posted to social media.
Police detained at least one worker, prompting others to shout and join in the scuffle.
Employees have been protesting since receiving a notice on Oct. 9 offering a payout of three months' minimum wage to anyone who volunteered to resign, amounting to a total of payment 8070 yuan (US$1,113).
Social media posts from people identifying themselves as workers from the company said the “voluntary resignations” weren’t actually voluntary, and that the company had described the layoff terms as “generous,” according to posts to X by citizen journalist “Mr Li is not your teacher.”
11月21日，上海七宝。因长期拖欠工资，逼迫工人辞职。国利公司的工人们走上沪淞公路堵路维权。
— 李老师不是你老师 (@whyyoutouzhele) November 21, 2024
之后警察开始对部分堵路工人进行驱散和抓捕。 pic.twitter.com/LyNyVaHTQo
They said they are entitled to three months' compensation based on their average wage over the previous 12 months.
The dispute was the latest in a string of increasingly visible labor disputes amid a flagging, post-lockdown economy in China.
A quarterly report from Washington DC-based Freedom House said that China saw “a 27 percent year-on-year increase in dissent events” between July 1 and Sept. 30.
The organization’s China Dissent Monitor noted that it has “documented a rise in protests over recent months by consumers and investors amidst a sluggish economy.”
“Despite the grievances originating with the conduct of private companies, nearly 40 percent of these protests demand government intervention,” the report said.
Long hours, low pay
An official who answered the phone at the complaints division of the local Qibao township government on Wednesday confirmed that workers at the Shanghai plant had been in dispute with their employer since October.
An officer who answered the phone at the Qibao township police department said police wouldn’t intervene in a labor dispute, other than to prevent people from blocking a highway.
Song Baowei, who heads the factory’s chapter of the official Shanghai Federation of Trade Unions, told Radio Free Asia that the union is currently investigating the reasons for Wednesday’s protest.
Long working hours, low pay and no way to stand up for their rights were the most frequently cited complaints by workers who spoke to RFA in recent interviews.
Labor activists say part of the problem is that corporate China has never had a strong sense of contractual obligation, nor a reliable mechanism for negotiating labor disputes.
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All official trade unions are controlled by the government, while the authorities frequently crack down with force on workers who organize via unofficial labor unions.
According to the Hong Kong-based non-profit China Labour Bulletin, China has seen hundreds of protests across the country during the past month, mostly by workers protesting wage arrears.
Non-payments
On Tuesday, dozens of construction workers protested wage arrears in the central city of Wuhan, with a similar protest on Monday by dozens of apparel factory workers in the eastern city of Hangzhou, according to the Bulletin’s Strike Map, which collates online reports of labor disputes around the country.
Video footage uploaded to the video-sharing platform Douyin showed delivery workers in the southern province of Guangdong protesting unpaid wages on Nov. 16.
China saw a rebound in strikes and protests in the first half of 2024, with more than 719 collective actions recorded by the Bulletin’s Strike Map in the six months through June 30.
But a search for disputes in the past month turned up more than 800 results on Friday, suggesting that the number of industrial disputes has continued to climb.
In the automotive sector, workers have been increasingly protesting reductions in working hours and non-payment of economic compensation, the Bulletin said in a report dated Sept. 19.
Many factories in the sector are laying off workers who don’t wish to relocate, and trying to find ways around honoring their contracts, the report said.
“To evade paying compensation, some companies shut down operations without closing the factory and forced workers to resign voluntarily,” it said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie.