This is an interesting commentary on the spate of strikes traversing across China’s auto components industry.

Apparently, there has also been a strike at a Toyota plant.

Don Sutherland
Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union

http://www.autonewschina.com/en/index.asp

Automotive News China
Room 1303, Building 2, Lane 99, South Hongcao Road,
Shanghai 200233
Telephone: 86-139-1851-5816
Fax: 86-21-6495-0895

COMMENT

A tip for executives: It’s time to communicate with your workers

Yang Jian

SHANGHAI — Why do workers strike? Well, most of the time they do it for better pay. But when workers at the Honda transmission plant in Guangdong province staged a walkout three weeks ago, they made one extra request.

In their negotiations with the plant’s management, the workers demanded an opportunity to learn Japanese so that they could talk to the management who are mostly Japanese nationals.

Here is a lesson for Honda as well as other foreign auto companies operating in China: establish an effective communication channel with your workers, which will help your company reduce the chance of being caught up in wildcat strikes.

After opening itself to the outside world in the late 1970s, China has done a fabulous job in attracting foreign investment. In addition to cheap land and low taxes, foreign companies are attracted by China’s cheap and non-unionized labor.

Beijing’s ban on independent labor unions has made it easy for the management to reject individual worker’s requests for pay raises.

But it also deprived management of an effective communications channel with workers.

But why were the three Honda factories the first Chinese auto plants to experience work stoppages?

Prior to strikes, they only paid their workers 1,000 to 1,500 yuan ($146 to $220) per month.

By contrast, American and European suppliers in coastal China pay nearly twice as much. This is the main cause of the strikes.

But a lack of communication between the management and the workers also helped trigger the walkouts.

Before the strikes, there was virtually no communication between workers and their employers. That resulted in a high turnover rate, and workers who stayed felt mistreated.

Once the strikes began, the official union was unable to negotiate on the workers’ behalf because they had no credibility.

During the walkout, the local branch of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions sent 40 members who were supposed to act as mediators. Instead they clashed with the strikers, who believed they were trying to force them back to work.

Honda didn’t make much progress until Zeng Qinghong, president of Honda’s joint-venture partner Guangzhou Automobile Industry Corp., offered to mediate. Zeng, a straight-talking executive, prodded workers and management to reach a compromise.
After suffering three wildcat strikes, Honda finally has recognized the need to improve employee communications.
“We need to have more opportunities for managers to listen to employees regularly,” Honda company spokesman Yoshiyuki Kuroda told Bloomberg News. “Without a system in place to communicate with individual workers, the company was unable to predict that strikes were coming.”

It is time for other companies to heed this message and reach out to their workers for communication.

Pictured:Yang Jian is managing editor of Automotive News China.

Related Stories:
· U.S. union may seek investigation of Chinese workers’ rights
–Published:2010/18/6
· China Toyota supplier reopened after brief strike
–Published:2010/17/6
· Honda China strike could spur broader worker demands
–Published:2010/14/6
· Honda China lock factory workers say still on strike
–Published:2010/14/6
· Honda says China plants operating despite strike
–Published:2010/12/6
· China Honda production threatened by strike-report
–Published:2010/12/6
· China labour unrest spreads as workers seek more
–Published:2010/11/6
· Striking Honda China workers hold out for pay, union
–Published:2010/11/6
· Honda to resume China car output; parts strike lingers
–Published:2010/11/6
· Labour strife spreads to 3rd Honda supplier in China
–Published:2010/9/6
· Honda supplier says China workers still on strike
–Published:2010/9/6
· Honda’s transmission plant reopens
–Published:2010/8/6
· China’s auto industry should prepare for higher wages
–Published:2010/8/6

BEIJING, June 17 (Reuters) — China must lift the incomes of workers to protect stability, the country’s top official paper said on Thursday, after the latest in a series of labour disputes briefly closed a supplier for Toyota Motor Corp.

The Toyoda Gosei plant, in the northern port city of Tianjin close to Beijing, was shut down on Tuesday by a strike but employees went back to work the next day after managers agreed to discuss wage increases, a company spokesman said.

The firm, 43 percent owned by Toyota Motor and a supplier of items such as door components for compact cars, has not fallen behind its production schedule because it cancelled a holiday on Wednesday, the spokesman said.

A Toyota Motor spokeswoman also said her company keeps some spare parts in inventory to allow it to cope with unexpected situations at its main auto plants in Tianjin.

A rash of walkouts in recent weeks has paralysed several factories across China.

The unusual display of worker assertiveness is sensitive for the ruling Communist Party, which fears movements that could undermine its legitimacy or grip on power.

The commentary on treatment of migrant workers in the People’s Daily newspaper, which acts as a channel for government thinking, did not mention the strikes.

But echoing comments by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao earlier in the week, its author said the time had come to narrow the gulf between rich and poor, which it added was stifling consumer demand.
The “made-in-China” model is “facing a turning point,” said the newspaper. It urged improved conditions for the migrant workers whose cheap labour has powered China’s export-led growth.
“What is important is achieving a relatively big improvement in the lives of ordinary people, especially wage labourers and their families,” added Tang Jun, a social policy researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think tank.
Also on Thursday, a branch of U.S. fast food restaurant KFC signed a collective labour contract in which it agreed to raise minimum wages by 200 yuan ($29.27) a month, as demanded by a local trade union, the official Xinhua agency said.

SOUTH CHINA WOES

The highest profile stoppage has been at a factory in southern Guangdong province that makes locks for Honda Motor vehicles, where hundreds of employees have returned to work after days of protests, pending an outcome from wage negotiations on Friday.

The sympathetic account of worker grievances in the state media suggests that Beijing wants to avoid outright confrontation with the workers and may welcome some concessions.

This week, Premier Wen also urged better treatment of the nation’s many millions of migrant labourers.

He told some of them that “all parts of society should treat young migrant workers as they would treat their own children”.

The strike at Honda Lock was the third to hit a Honda parts supplier in China in the last few weeks.

The other two strikes, at suppliers producing transmissions and exhausts, were settled after workers received pay rises.
The unrest has raised questions about the future of low-cost manufacturing in China, although analysts say there is little danger of it sparking a more powerful workers rights movement.

“There is a small risk that such disputes could spiral out of control, but an even smaller risk that they will lead to wider political instability,” Eurasia Group analyst Michal Meidan wrote in a recent note.

The People’s Daily said that as China’s supply of young, cheap workers from the countryside tightens, the country must focus on improving skills and shifting to service jobs.

That shift will also require giving workers thicker pay packets to spend on consumption and services, said the paper.

Toyota resumes China plant output as strike ends

Automotive News China

TOKYO/ZHONGSHAN, June 19 (Reuters) — Toyota Motor Corp avoided a prolonged suspension of production at its main Chinese car factory when a strike at a plastic parts supplier was settled on Saturday.

The management offered additional benefits but no extra wage increase.

The stoppage for most of Friday at Toyota’s joint venture factory in Tianjin, near Beijing, was the latest in a series of disruptions across the country caused by labour disputes.

Widening discontent among an estimated 130 million strong pool of migrant workers, whose toil has powered China’s growth, threatens to undermine the government’s legitimacy and erode the nation’s competitiveness as a low-cost factory hub.

Toyota said its Tianjin factory, held jointly with Chinese carmaker FAW, would resume output on Monday after the strike-hit Toyota-affiliated parts maker, Toyoda Gosei Co, said it reached agreement with workers.

Toyoda Gosei spokesman Shingo Handa said workers agreed to accept management’s offer of extra allowances for perfect attendance and summer heat. This was on top of an original 20 percent wage increase following a scheduled, annual pay review.

“The settlement did not include any wage increase on top of what was originally offered,” he told Reuters by telephone.

Handa said the plant would operate on Sunday — usually a day off — to make up for the production lost late last week.

Workers at a Honda Motor auto parts plant in southern China also showed up for work on Saturday apparently ready to accept a new pay deal to resolve a week-long strike.

“We’re tired of all this tension,” said one young woman who was among hundreds streaming to work at the Honda plant.

“We just want to go back to work and see what happens.”

HONDA HIT

A Honda spokeswoman said yet another strike had hit a supplier, this time affiliate Nihon Plast Co whose plant in Zhongshan was affected on Thursday.

Production at the factory, which makes plastic parts such as steering wheels, had resumed on Friday but negotiations between workers and management are still going on, Honda said.

The Nihon Plast factory also supplies steering wheels and airbags to Nissan Motor Co but a spokesman at Nissan said there had been no impact on its car production.

China’s leaders, who are obsessed by stability but also say they can ensure a better life for those at the bottom end of an expanding rich-poor gap, have muted coverage of the unrest in state media while expressing public support for workers.

A strike also began late last week at a brewery partly owned by Danish brewer Carlsberg in the southwestern city of Chongqing but the company said the workers had returned to work on Friday evening.

China's workers protesting

He is well known as being Hinze, used often by unions.

His books are worth getting.

http://www.scratch.com.au/archive/2010/100605s.jpg

first join a union

by Michael A. Lebowitz

Book ad: from Monthly Review Press

“. . . one of the foremost works in the new theory of socialist transition, and a worthy complement to Lebowitz’s previous works, Beyond Capital and Build It Now.”—John Bellamy Foster; editor, Monthly Review

“. . . should be the focus for discussion groups of activists as they attempt to unite their radical practice with theorizing a radical, democratic, and Marxist alternative for the future.”—Bill Fletcher, Jr.; coauthor, Solidarity Divided

“. . . a desperately needed framework for linking vision to action to self-and-social transformation.”—Sam Gindin, York University

“. . . a thought provoking and inspiring book—essential reading for all interested in and working for a socialism for the twenty-first century.”—Pat Devine, University of Manchester

“Anyone interested in the current 21st century rebirth of socialism should carefully read and reflect on this important contribution.”—Al Campbell, University of Utah

“. . . illuminates and extends Marx’s powerful insights to provide a clear and well grounded vision of socialism, a critical perspective on past failures and current efforts, and a strategic framework for building a successful path towards socialism.”—Martin Hart-Landsberg, Lewis and Clark College

www.monthlyreview.org

Marx on profit

CFMEU. Since the introduction of the Australian Building and Construction Commission in 2005, we have witnessed a massive increase in deaths and serious injuries in the construction industry.

The statistics tell us what so many families of construction workers know, from their first hand experience of suffering and loss.

The number of deaths in the construction industry have gone up.

From 3.14 per 100,000 workers in 2004, before the ABCC started, to 4.8 per 100,000 workers in 2007 and 4.27 in 2009.

That means a worker is killed each week. No fewer than 50 families have had a loved one taken away from them.

On International Workers’ Memorial Day, Wednesday 28th April we want you to remember our mates as well.

Construction workers will be rallying with other unions and workers in your State to demand an end to the ABCC and its laws:

Sydney, New South Wales: 12:00pm Rally at Darling Harbour Memorial.

Brisbane, Queensland: 10:00am Rally at Roma Street Forum with unveiling of memorial. and respects paid to 12 Queensland workers killed in 2009 – 2010.

Adelaide, South Australia: 10:30am Memorial Service at St Stephen’s Church Wakefield Street, followed by a rally in Victoria Square, Adelaide, 12:00 pm

Melbourne, Victoria: 10:00am rally at Memorial Rock, Trades Hall, Lygon Street.

Perth, Western Australia: 10:30am Service at Solidarity Park. Perth Bell Tower tolls at 12:00 pm for each worker killed this year in WA.

Canberra 10 am at Unions ACT Unit 9, 189 Flemington Road, MITCHELL, ACT, 2911.

Dave Noonan and the Rights on Site team

MOURNING THE DEAD AND FIGHTING FOR THE LIVING

The key focus for Australian unions is the loss of rights and protections for workers and
their representatives under the Model OHS Act due to take effect 1 January 2013.

 All workers have the right to:
 Be represented in their workplace on OHS matters.
 Have an OHS Rep who is protected and supported by OHS law and
 The right of any worker to have unrestricted access to a union official of their choice.
Compensation

The Rudd government has also started to process of developing a model Workers Compensation Act.
Safe Work Australia held a 2 day Forum 30 & 31 March 2010.

However, unions are sceptical about this, given reductions of worker OHS rights and protections that currently stand to happen.

A key speaker at the forum, Dr Mary Wyatt, said that
* ‘Return to Work’, following an injury, is important, but not going well and
* ‘harmonisation’, as currently discussed, won’t improve the situation.

The importance of OHS Reps
In the UK, the government knows OHS Reps make a huge difference – the “union safety effect.”
The government estimates safety reps save society between £181 million and £578 million each year
Savings came from a reduction in annual lost time occupational injuries and work-related illnesses of between 286,000 and 616,000 days.

It is estimated that the UK’s OHS Reps prevent between 8,000 and 13,000 workplace incidents and between 3,000 and 8,000 work-related illnesses each year.

(Source: Workplace reps: A review of their facilities and facility time, January 2007).

Another British study in 2000 found that ‘The proportion of employees who are trade union
members has a positive and significant association on both injury and illness rates.’

In Australia, research over the last 20 years has found that, where OHS Reps are trained and provided the broadest powers, they are most effective.

Source: Biggins, D. and Holland, T. (1995), ’The Training and Effectiveness of Health and Safety
Representatives’ in Eddington, I. ed. Towards Health and Safety at Work: Technical Papers of the Asia Pacific Conference on Occupational Health and Safety, Brisbane, 75-9.Biggins, D., Phillips, M. and O’Sullivan, P. (1991), ‘Benefits of worker participation in health and safety’, Labour and Industry, 4(1): 138-159; Biggins, D and Phillips, M (1991)

A survey of health and safety
representatives in Queensland Part 1: Activities, issues, information sources, Journal of
Occupational health and Safety — Australia and New Zealand, 7 (3): 195-202

What happens when workers don’t have the right to be represented

Laws that are specific only to the construction industry restrict the right of workers to access representatives of their choice – union officials.

The number of deaths in the construction industry has increased nearly every year from 3.14 deaths per 100,000 workers in 2004 to 4.27 deaths in 2008.

International Workers Memorial Day (WMD) is an international day that unions, workers and their families and communities around the world join together to remember and mourn for those who have been killed or injured by work, and to fight for the living.

The day is also known as ‘International Commemoration Day’.

History of WMD
 Workers Memorial Day was started by Canadian Unions in 1984. By 1996, it was an international day.
 Australian unions first marked the day in 1997.

In 2004 Victorian Unions adopted the canary as the symbol of this day (first adopted by Canadian Unions).
 Activities held by unions and community groups have grown over the years, with all capital cities and many regional centres holding an event on or near the day. Many workplaces also mark the day with a minute’s silence at 11:00am.

 Globally in 2009, 14 million people took part in over 10,000 activities in over 100 countries.

Why we have WMD

 Globally, we remember the 2 million workers who die, the 1.2 million who are injured, the 160 million who fall ill each year from unsafe, unhealthy or unsustainable work and workplaces and the 337 million non fatal occupational incidents that occur each year.
Source: ILO date for 2008

 In Australia as many as 21 Australians die each day from work-related incidents or illnesses, 1890 workers are injured or made ill each day and one in seven workers are exposed to at least one cancer causing substance in their workplace.
 The ILO estimates that Australia, with different reporting systems (compensation, inspectorates,
coronary reports, hospital records) at best cover 60 – 70% of all fatalities.
 Every 2 -3 minutes someone in Australia is injured seriously enough to lodge a workers compensation claim.

The (former) Australian safety and Compensation Commission stated in a March 2009 report that

“Studies estimate that as many as 7000 fatalities may occur each year as a result of work related
diseases.”

This is four times the national road toll.
 The total economic cost of work-related injuries and illnesses for the 2005-06 financial year was $57.6
billion, or 5.9% of Australia’s Gross Domestic Product.
 In 2004 the national OHS Commission found that
In terms of the burden to economic agents, only 3 per cent of the total cost is borne by
employers, 44 per cent by workers and 53 per cent by the community. The cost of pain,
suffering and early death could conservatively add a further $48.5 billion to the total cost
figure (net of human capital costs already included in total costs), leading to a total cost
estimate of $82.8 billion.

What can your workplace do?
 Put this ACTU flyer on your notice board
 Send your OHS rep to the event in your State.
 Talk to your workmates and observe a minute’s silence at your workplace at 11.00am on Wednesday 28 April.

Rights on site campaigns to abolish the ABCC

Teachers are winning the public debate. The DPM on the ABC tonight gave a (rare) disastrous floundering account, more spin than merit. But more to come.

Julia Gillard delights in her plans to use parents to undermine teachers’ industrial action. Why?

- unless it is all about being so right-wing that she is more career acceptable to powers that be.

NAPLAN is designed to produce standardised results allowing for unfair comparison of students’ literacy and numeracy levels.

The DPM is of course able to produce a website and tests rather than addressing teacher-student educational reforms
- apart from the quantity buildings and computer investment- in trouble on blow-outs but also on quality).

The test results on My School website are used to construct misleading league tables that is damaging to schools and students.(see ealier blogs).

“Teachers cannot hand out the tests until something is done to stop the results being used to publicly brand students and schools as failures in league tables,” AEU federal president Angelo Gavrielatos said.

No doubt the DPM’s moves are politically deliberate.

Not that is happening in Gillard’s seat, but marginal ALP election hard-heads would be worried about teacher union bashing

High profile SA Education Minister Jane Lomax-Smith was voted out with a 15% swing. A major reason was that on education the Rann government was on the nose. It had attacked the AEU SA. The Minister was arrogant. She was not liked in education, but hated by many teachers, the union, and senior education bureaucrats. They were sick and tired of the Minister not pursuing reasonable merit community supported education polices. New Minister Jay Weatherill a challenger may not to much better.

The teacher- union-bashing so liked by the right
has its down-side – teachers do have a voice, in their union, with parents, they are well-regarded, and many loved and they vote.

But the DPM invests her political capital, in outrage classifying teachers and their union leaders as some how harming students and their education etc etc and shrilly advocating parents to take on their teachers over the boycott.

This blog has earlier recorded the AEU’s arguements. ‘League tables which rank schools based on raw test scores are bad for students, schools and education.

Naming and shaming schools that don’t get high marks in the tests is devastating for those school communities and makes it much harder for students and teachers.

Already in 2010 newspapers in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and the Northern Territory have published damaging league tables using data from the My School website.

The Education Minister Julia Gillard says league tables are misleading and make the job of teachers harder, but so far she has refused to act.

Only by working together can we convince the Federal Government to take action on this important issue.’

Rigorous assessment and reporting is an integral part of successful teaching and learning.
Parents have every right to information on their child’s progress and the effectiveness of
their child’s school.

This information must be accurate, comprehensive and reliable – and it must support the efforts of schools to continually improve opportunities and outcomes for students.

Unfortunately the My School website has fallen well short of these standards, a problem
compounded by the misleading and invalid league tables that followed within 24 hours of the site going live.

The current version of the site is flawed because it:

Facilitates the publication of league tables. Nothing has been done to prevent the creation and publication of league tables using average student NAPLAN scores available on the website.

These league tables have had a damaging impact on students, the reputation of schools, and on
teachers.

The Education Minister, Julia Gillard has acknowledged the negative impact of league
tables and how they make the job of improving student achievement harder and yet she has
provided, without safeguard, all the information necessary to create them.

Misuses NAPLAN results.

The NAPLAN tests were designed as a measure of individual student performance. They were never designed to be used to create average scores to rank and compare schools.

The tests are not accurate enough to do this, especially given the huge error rates around small school results. In addition, using NAPLAN test data in this way on the site does not show the progress of students or the difference a school makes to students.

NAPLAN was designed to help students. It now is being deployed in ways that may damage the most vulnerable students.

Uses a flawed index to produce invalid and misleading comparisons of schools. The Index of
Community Socio-Educational Advantage fails to take into account critical factors that affect
educational outcomes including:

• The background of students attending a school. Instead census data for the general
community or communities that students are drawn from is used.

• Whether students come from a non-English speaking background or have special needs.

• The size of a school, its funding, resources and staffing levels.

• Whether a school has a selective entry policy or not.

As a result of this flawed index, schools that are dissimiliar have their results directly compared
on the site in a way that is both misleading for parents and unfair for schools and students.

Further at
http://www.aeufederal.org.au/Publications/2010/AEUproposalLT2010.pdf

The AEU ought to have a lawful right to implement the boycott without being penalised and pursue a political strategy based on genuine educational reform.

ACTU’s position.
Teachers’ proposed improvements to MySchool website should not be ignored

There are legitimate concerns over the inaccuracy and potential misuse of information on the MySchool website and the proposals by teachers for improvements should not be ignored, says the ACTU.

ACTU President Sharan Burrow said no-one’s interests are served by the current stalemate and urged the Federal Government to sit down and work with teachers to resolve their concerns.

Ms Burrow said unions supported both the NAPLAN tests and the MySchool website as a means of helping drive better educational outcomes for students and urged the Federal Government to consider the teachers’ proposals to improve their operation.

“It is important to recognise that the refusal of public school teachers to supervise the tests in their current form is not an industrial issue, but one of professionalism and educational values,” Ms Burrow said.

“There is no strike. Students will be taught on the days next month that the tests are scheduled for, but teachers have said they will not administer the tests.

“Teachers are not opposed to the tests but believe it is not professionally acceptable for them to stand back and watch them being used as a simplistic and inadequate measure of school performance.

“Through their unions, teachers have proposed a range of constructive measures to the Government that are needed to improve the accuracy of the information that is provided to parents, including the comparisons between schools.

“The teachers’ proposals would also protect the site from being misused through the production of school performance “league tables” that are inaccurate and would wrongly stigmatise particular students or schools.

“We would hope the Government would want to further refine its comparative methodology and urge them to fully consult with teachers and parents.

“For example, it is absurd and ridiculous for the MySchool website to compare the 15 student Teealba State School in outback Queensland or one student Dargo Public School in the Victorian alps with Melbourne’s exclusive Xavier College which has almost 2000 students.

“There needs to be a full disclosure of the financial resources and socio-economic status of schools and students on the website and a more rigorous enforcement of copyright to prevent misuse of the data.

“Parents and students are losing out while the expertise and knowledge of teachers is being overlooked,” Ms Burrow said.

View other photos

http://www.labourstart.org/lpoty/

Marx on profit

Rights to information and consultation about work and employer decision-making is a key industrial relations issue. The ACTU found in a survey of 8,000 workers 70% were ‘very concerned or concerned’ about the lack of information and consultation in their workplace.

So what is the DPM’s response in the Fair Work bill? In the NES legally employees can recieve The Fair Work Information Statement. This is only a right to receive a description of the government’s industrial relations legislation in the government Gazette! That is all! This is simply pathetic and into 1984 double-speak to be described as an advance for workers’ rights. Get onto your Senator. Your Rights at Work deserve better.

The Howard Government abolished award rights for consultation. Except where organised by unions with forms of joint consultative committees and with State based Occupational Health and Safety rights, workers do not have legal workplace democracy rights.

Australian citizens can vote democratically, but not at work for their representatives (except where orgaised and agreed to by a good employer). Inequalities in the workplace cannot be addressed unless have some rights. Where employers do not agree, workers deserve a minimum entitlement to have a say over their employment status, their unreasonable hours and working conditions and over unreasonable management prerogative and a voice.

But employees have no legal rights to information or consultation or to elect a workplace representative structure.

What is missing in the FWB is any attempt at minimum workers democracy rights that are legislated for elsewhere, e.g. the European Works Council Directives where the giant corporations are able to exist and prosper with such worker entitlements. You can examine in Europe information and consultative obligations covering small and medium businesses. Such legislative minima provide an process to assist redressing power inequalities.

There is much literature on industrial democracy and in some countries Works’ Councils. One reference reviewed on this blog is ‘Works Councils in Australia Future Prospects and Possibilities’, edited by Paul Gollan, Ray Markey and Iain Ross, Federation Press, 2002.

The Senate ought to insist on minimum rights for employees to information about the business, enterprise and industry they are working in. There ought to be on request legal rights for employees to have information and be consulted about and participate in management decision-making and the ability for union and employee representatives to have some democratic structure and voice as a National Employment Standard.

Fair Work Bill