From: "Curtis Price" <cansv-AT-igc.apc.org>
Date:          Tue, 29 Jul 1997 18:29:15 +0000
Subject: AUT: (Fwd) China hit by soaring numbers of labour disputes


------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Tue, 29 Jul 1997 08:31:48 -0700
From:          NewsHound <NewsHound-AT-hound.com>

Reply-to:      NewsHound-AT-hound.com
Subject:       China hit by soaring numbers of labour disputes



NewsHound article from "STRIKES" hound, score "75."



China hit by soaring numbers of labour disputes

BEIJING (Reuter) - The number of labor disputes in which Chinese employees
were involved soared 59 percent in the first half of 1997 compared with the
same period of last year, the China Market Economic News said Tuesday.

Reported disputes between Chinese employers and >>workers<< had been
increasing continuously since 1992, with the annual growth rate at around
50 percent -- except for in 1995 when disputes rocketed 73 percent, it
quoted the Labor Ministry as saying.

``Our nation is now in a period of numerous labor disputes and they are
ever more complicated and varied, with new situations emerging in an
endless stream,'' the newspaper said.

Earlier this month, several thousand >>workers<< staged some of the largest
known protests in recent years in Mianyang in southwestern Sichuan province
after their factories declared bankruptcy. Several people were arrested.

China's nascent system for resolving labor disputes had dealt with 1.27
million cases up to the end of 1996, the newspaper said but gave no yearly
figures.

The shift to new systems of employment had inevitably resulted in conflicts
of interest and viewpoint that prompted all kinds of disputes, it said.

China has in recent years sought to invigorate its troubled state sector by
breaking the ``iron rice-bowl'' system of socialist employment that
guaranteed employees jobs for life with little linkage between pay and
productivity.

New labor laws designed to enshrine such changes while protecting
>>workers<<' rights were an important reason for the dominance of labor
disputes, because employees and employers were increasingly aware of legal
methods that could be used to resolve conflicts, the newspaper said.

Chinese leaders have long taken great pains to ensure labor disputes do not
become a vehicle for opposition to the ruling Communist Party.

Authorities ban all >>strikes<< and move quickly to suppress demonstrations
by >>workers<< or any organization of labor beyond the tightly-controlled
official unions.



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