Wage negotiations between a Honda car parts supplier and its workers ended on Saturday with a pay rise of about one-third in Foshan City, south China's Guangdong Province.
Last year, walkouts disrupted the operation of the Foshan Nanhai Honda Auto Parts Manufacturing Company (Nanhai Honda), thereby suspending the production of other Honda-related plants and triggering a spate of strikes in China.
Monthly wages for all workers have now been raised by at least one-third. The company's minimum monthly wage was raised from 1,029 yuan (155 U.S. dollars) to 1,530 yuan (230 U.S. dollars), according to the agreement between the company and worker representatives.
In addition, the company agreed to give a 2,200-yuan "summer bonus" in July. The monthly pay of an assembly line worker will be more than 2,400 yuan, workers said.
A total of 111 representatives for the plant's 1,800 workers took part in the vote. Ninety-eight representatives voted for the wage scheme, while the remaining representatives abstained.
The negotiations lasted for four months and faced a great deal of difficulties, said Wang Chaoqun, 25, the company's newly-elected trade union vice president.
Irie Shigeru, who became Nanhai Honda's general manager after the walkouts last year, said he was very pleased that an agreement was reached after the negotiations.
"Finally, we managed to bridge the workers and the company through wage negotiations," Irie Shigeru said.
WORKERS HAVE A GREATER SAY
Lu Minhua, a migrant worker from central China' s Hunan Province, has a clear requirement for choosing her job; it should pay no less than 1,800 yuan per month and require no overtime.
She is one of the many migrant workers at a job fair in Guangzhou City, the capital of south China's Guangdong Province, who are demanding more wages, less overtime, and better accommodations and working conditions.
Migrant workers are gaining a voice in negotiations with employers because the demand for them has exceeded the supply as China's manufacturing industry keeps expanding rapidly, especially in the less developed areas in central and west China, said Kong Xianghong, an All China Federation of Trade Unions' inspector in Guangdong.
"Workers now have much stronger bargain power. They can always quit and soon find another job when an employer refuses to give reasonable wages and improve working conditions," Kong said.
"Migrant workers are demanding higher pay, better working conditions and more leisure time. This is progress. The workers don't need to make sacrifices for the benefit of companies," said Wang Tongxin, deputy head of Shenzhen Federation of Trade Unions.
Shenzhen is one of China's most developed cities and another manufacturing hub of Guangdong.
Zhang Huangyong from Hunan Province has been working in Shenzhen for more than 15 years. He could get by well before he got married. But now, life has been getting worse. "I cannot afford to have children. I cannot support my parents and my wife's parents let alone buy an apartment."
Zhang said that other migrant workers shared his problem. "The wages are just enough for survival. But we want to have a family and become urban residents. We want better prospects. Changes must be made."
GROWING WAGES
Zhai Yujuan, a labor law scholar with Shenzhen University, said that the wages of migrant workers are around 1,500 yuan. "Many labor intensive companies are paying workers the minimum wage stipulated by the government. So the most effective way to improve workers' pay is to increase the minimum wage standard."
Members of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's political advisory body, have proposed increasing Shenzhen's minimum wage from 1,100 yuan to 1,600 yuan. The minimum wage is usually 40 to 60 percent of local average wages, or at least 1,500 yuan for Shenzhen.
Analysts say that there is a lot of room for minimum wage growth in more developed east China. But some companies complain that rising labor costs are driving them out of business.
"Workers are entitled to reasonable wages for their labor. They have no obligation to keep the companies profitable," said Wang Hongli, deputy head of the production protection department of Shenzhen Federation of Trade Unions.
In making the minimum wage standards, the government should give more consideration to the workers, instead of worrying too much about the companies' costs, Wang Hongli added.
"Pay rises are often beneficial to companies. They will greatly improve efficiency," he said.
Foxconn, the world's largest electronics contractor, barely raised wages until 12 workers jumped to their deaths from buildings in the company's complex in Shenzhen. Foxconn then increased average monthly wages for its assembly line workers from 900 yuan to 2,000 yuan, adding an estimated annual hike in manufacturing costs of 5 billion yuan.
Foxconn has been building complexes in China' s hinterland cities such as Chengdu, Chongqing and Zhengzhou. Analysts say that it is moving to avoid high labor costs in Shenzhen.
"But the truth is, Foxconn's labor force in Shenzhen has grown from 280,000 to 540,000. The companies are able to raise income. They are just not under enough pressure to do so," Wang Hongli said.
DIFFICULT NEGOTIATIONS
In 2009, the monthly wage of Tan Guocheng, an assembly worker at Nanhai Honda, was 796 yuan, just above the government minimum wage of 770 yuan.
A year later, the minimum monthly wage grew to 920 yuan and Tan got a raise to 1,059 yuan.
"I have barely anything left every month after paying rent, spending on food and other daily necessities," Tan said.
The employees stopped working in May 2010 to demand pay increases and better welfare. But the company insisted that the pay was in line with local minimum wage regulations.
At first, managers said that the company was in poor financial conditions and could not afford pay rises. But its financial report, which was revealed after pressure from the public, showed that it earned 190 million yuan in 2010. It was the company's best year ever.
After the profit was revealed, the company had to give in and pay each worker about 5,200 yuan. Even that was just about 10 million yuan in total, a small fraction of the company's profit.
Lack of information is a great disadvantage for workers. China's laws stipulate that the companies are obliged to provide necessary information for wage negotiation or they would be imposed a maximum fine of 10,000 yuan, Wang Hongli said.
"During negotiations, companies would usually say that the information is confidential and would refuse to give it," Wang Hongli added.
China needs to improve its labor laws to further standardize wage negotiations. "What if the company refuses to talk with the workers? What would be the role of trade unions and local governments in the negotiations? How can the rights of workers be protected when they demand reasonable pay?" Kong Xianghong asked.
"The workers are gaining some influence. But they are still far weaker than their employers," Wang Tongxin said.
by Xinhua writers Yang Dingdu, Wang Pan, Zhang Zeyuan, Liu Jingyang
