China strike wave continues

Workers at a Japanese-owned electronics factory in north China have been on strike for three days, the most recent dispute in a wave of labor unrest.

Banners on Thursday at the side of the Tianjin Mitsumi Electric Co., a factory employing 3,000 workers, read "we want a pay rise" and "we want fair treatment".

Strikes, mostly at foreign owned firms, have happened more frequently as 150 million migrant workers become increasingly assertive in demanding their piece of China's economic boom.

Yoshitsugu Murakami, a spokesman for Mitsumi, the Toyko listed holding company which owns the factory, confirmed that a strike was taking place but had no details on why the workers walked off the job or by how much production had been hit.

The striking workers have demanded higher wages and improved benefits, China's official Xinhua news agency reported on Wednesday.

One factory labourer told Xinhua that he earned the equivalent of $220 per month after working six days a week and regular overtime.

Police guarded the Mitsumi plant and stopped reporters from speaking to workers inside, underscoring fears from China's single party state that labor unrest could challenge its grip on power.

China's domestic media has been largely mute about this and other strikes, although unrest has been covered in English by the Xinhua news agency.

Strikes effective

The increasing frequency of strikes may be due to their effectiveness, particularly in foreign owned auto-manufacturing plants.

Japanese companies, with their tight supply chains, seem to be particularly vulnerable to industrial action.

After a three week work stoppage and violent clashes, management at a Honda parts factory in Foshan offered a 24 per cent pay hike to 1,900 striking workers, most of whom returned to work on June 4.

On June 25, Toyota Motor Corp said it planned to resume production at its 360,000 units-a-year joint venture auto plant in Guangzhou, after three days of strikes.