INDUSTRIAL UNREST

BY VARUN BANDI
 [INDUSTRIAL UNREST] July 3, 2010

INDUSTRIAL UNREST:

Definition:
Industrial unrest is the term used to describe activities undertaken by the workforce
when they protest against pay or conditions of their employment.

Actions may include strikes, sit-ins, slowdowns or work-to-rule. Historically, riots also

took place, such as the action taken by the Luddites during the Industrial Revolution,
and other machine-wrecking outbreaks.

CAUSES FOR INDUSTRIAL UNREST:

Industrial unrest is “a disturbed state; disquietude sometimes amounting to

insurgency”. It is also manifestation of mankind’s eternal struggle for improvement
.Unrest is an active and not a passive condition; it is antipodal to despair because it
is coupled with a hope and expectation that the cause of dissatisfaction can be
remedied, or at least alleviated. If the condition of workers is so precarious that they
have to hope for betterment, their feeling of upper desire can be and usually are
,ignored by others ,since it is a characteristic of any society to maintain the status
quo until forced to change by overt expressions of unrest. Because it is dynamic
industrial unrest thrusts itself upon the attention of the community and there by
becomes a “problem.” But it is not in itself a destructive force; its final effect depends
upon what is done about it.

Strikes are the one form of expression of workers dissatisfactions, and an analysis of
cited reasons for the work stoppages which are taking place would be one way to
discuss the causes of industrial unrest. Such overt expressions of discontent,
however, seldom arise over specific and immediate issues alone, but have their
roots in subsoil of accumulated dissatisfaction. To understand the underlying causes
of workers unrest it is necessary first to consider their innate needs and desires, and
then to find out why and in what way their conditions of work do not satisfy these
desire. This will be focused on the question: What are the basic drives in human
nature which seek satisfaction through economic endeavour, and how is modern
industry failing to satisfy these natural aspirations? Four fundamental human needs
have been selected for discussion –the urge for self-expression; the desire for
personal achievement and progress; the need for group status; and longing for
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security.

EXAMPLES:

China's factories hit by wave of strikes:

Industrial unrest has been spreading through China's factories, with strikes breaking
out in the south, east and north. China correspondent Damian Grammaticus has
been to the industrial heartland in southern Guangdong province to examine why the
strikes are happening and what the implications are.
 [INDUSTRIAL UNREST] July 3, 2010

It is 0730 local time in Shenzhen, China's factory heartland, and rush hour for the
workers.

The pavements are thronged, packed with people heading for the morning shift.
They wear uniforms, red T-shirts for one factory, blue for another, white for another.

It all looks orderly, but there are stirrings of discontent here at the heart of China's
manufacturing industries.

Strikes have been rippling from factory to factory. There have been at least a dozen
in the past few weeks. Outside Merry Electronics in Shenzhen earlier this month,
workers blocked the road.

Footage taken with a mobile phone shows them pushing and shoving in a face-off
with government security officers.

"Why are you beating us?" the workers shout. Almost all are young, teenagers or in
their 20s, migrants from China's countryside. With a megaphone the officers shout
back: "Don't act illegally."

Now they are back at work at the Merry factory. Outside the gates at 1930, the day
shift is knocking off and hundreds of people are filing past.

'Unprecedented'
The strike is a really sensitive subject. One striker, Mr Wang, who is 20 years old
and comes from central China, tells us he was involved.

The strike, he says, was spontaneous, triggered by anger that the factory was not
paying overtime rates for work at weekends. So for labouring seven days a week, 11
hours a day, the migrants were earning less than a dollar an hour.

The new generation of workers born in the 80s and 90s are not like their
parents”
Duan YiLawyer
"Lots of workers are unhappy with their pay," Mr Wang says. "Even those who have
been here for years get just the minimum wage like newcomers. At least striking
together got attention for our cause."
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The workers negotiated directly with Merry's managers. In this nascent labour
movement, the strikers are disorganised, with no leaders, no agreed set of demands.
They settled for an assurance that wages will go up modestly.

'So angry' FOXCONN:

One company that has come under scrutiny because of its working conditions is
Foxconn.

At its giant plant in Shenzhen vast factory buildings stretch into the distance. About
400,000 people work at this site. There has been a spate of suicides here in recent
months.
 [INDUSTRIAL UNREST] July 3, 2010

Foxconn's production lines churn out iPhones and iPads for Apple, along with
products for other big-name brands. Its army of workers are regimented and
disciplined.

But Foxconn has been forced to promise a near doubling of wages after the recent
deaths among its workforce.

In a tiny, cramped flat we met the family of Ma Xiangqian, the first worker to die this
year. He was 19 years old. His sister Ma Liqun says he was not happy at the factory.

She shows me his Foxconn pay slips. They record he worked an average of almost
10 hours a day, and his total pay averaged around a dollar an hour. She worked at
Foxconn too.

"I had to weld electronic parts," says Ma Liqun. "Our supervisor stood behind with a
stopwatch timing us, we were allowed three seconds exactly for the welding tool to
heat up each time.

"If we got it wrong, sometimes we had to write a self-criticism and read it out loud in
front of our colleagues. A girl cried once doing that. We worked under huge
pressure."

Her father, Ma Zishan, a farmer, sent his three children to work in Guangdong's
factories, hoping his son would prosper and provide for the family in coming years.

"He was my only son," says Mr Ma through his tears "He was never any trouble.
Now we don't have a son to support us in the future.

"We are so angry about it, and we regret so much sending him out to work. Just
thinking about it makes me more and more unhappy."

'More rebellious'

All of this amounts to growing pressure for wages in China's factories to rise and
they are creeping up, which may, slowly, feed into higher prices for products in the
West.

Duan Yi says workers expect more from life than their parents did
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After 20 years of China's manufacturing boom, a new, younger generation of workers

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has emerged with greater expectations than their parents and they are starting to
assert themselves.

Duan Yi is a lawyer who has advised some of the recent strikers.

"The new generation of workers born in the 80s and 90s are not like their parents,"
he says. "They want to make a life in the cities. So they are becoming better
organised and more rebellious than ever before. "

But any change will only come slowly to China's massive manufacturing industries.
 [INDUSTRIAL UNREST] July 3, 2010

The streets of Shenzhen are still packed with migrant workers. The flow of people
coming here from the countryside is never ending. Behind them there is still a pool of
millions and millions.

And even if the workers do not like the wages they are being paid, more will still keep
coming looking for opportunities they cannot find in China's inland provinces.

Strikes halt work at Toyota and Honda plants in China:

A Toyota plant in Guangdong province has stood idle since Tuesday after workers at
a nearby parts supplier, Denso, walked out the day before.

Honda said one of its joint venture plants has also had to stop work.

The strikes highlight growing discontent among millions of workers over low pay and
poor conditions.

The BBC's Damian Grammaticas in Beijing says their industrial actions are not legal,
but they have seen other strikes in recent weeks force managers to conceded pay
rises of up to 25%.

And so the stoppages appear to be copycat actions by an increasingly assertive

labour force, our correspondent says.

“Start Quote

I feel not respected by the human resources department - they often say 'You
can leave if you think other plants are better', when we ask for something”
Worker on strikeDenso Corporation, Guangdong

IS the era of cheap labour over?

It is not clear when production at the Toyota factory in Guangdong province, China's
manufacturing hub, will restart.

The strike at Denso, which makes fuel injectors and other parts, began on Monday
when more than 200 staff downed tools in a dispute over pay, state media reported.
4

"I feel not respected by the human resources department. They often say 'You can
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leave if you think other plants are better', when we ask for something," one worker
was quoted by Xinhua as saying.

Local government and union officials are trying to help resolve the stand-off, Xinhua
said.
 [INDUSTRIAL UNREST] July 3, 2010

Social unrest:

Last week production at one of Toyota's main assembly plants in China was hit by a
three-day strike at one of the carmaker's affiliated suppliers.

Meanwhile another of Japan's big carmakers, Honda, was also forced to halt
production on Wednesday when an assembly plant run by its Chinese joint venture
Guan qi Honda Automobile stopped operations after strikes at a Japanese supplier.

The Honda plant is expected to resume operations on Thursday, a Beijing-based

Honda spokesman told AFP.

Honda's car assembly lines in southern China have been disrupted several times in
recent weeks because of labour disputes.

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