Closer to Labour Reform? China’s First Successful Collective Bargaining Case

Editor's note: First thing's first – "collective bargaining is a process of negotiations between employers and the representatives of a unit of employees aimed at reaching agreements that regulate working conditions. Collective agreements usually set out wage scales, working hours, training, health and safety, overtime, grievance mechanisms and rights to participate in workplace or company affairs" (Wikipedia).  The following article, originally published by Deutsch Welle, Germany's international broadcaster, covers the recent conclusion of China's first "real" collective bargaining case (real because the government didn't intervene), between the workers and managers at a watch chain factory in Shenzhen. The article highlights the importance of this landmark event and discusses the future implications of it on both China's industrial democracy and political reform.

Photo: max56

Last October, all was not well at the Guanxing Precision Machinery Product Factory – a Japanese-funded factory that manufactures watch chains for Citizen. The factory's employees were furious that 40 minutes had been deducted from their timecard every day since 2005 (to make up for the time spent going to the bathroom). On October 17th, all 1,178 employees decided to strike, using the tried and true stand outside in peaceful protest method to voice their great displeasure over their skewed wages. On November 6th, with the signatures of 584 people, 10 employee representatives hired the Shenzhen Laowei Law Firm to supply them with legal advice and help with the signing of agreements during their negotiations with the factory's management. The labour and management sides held two rounds of formal negotiation, and on November 19th, both sides signed the memorandum for the negotiation. On November 30th, the employee representatives received the first chunk of compensation for the five years of "40-minute-a-day-overtime". This marks the first time that collective bargaining between labour and management has been successful…without the intervention of the government.

Prospects of future dialogue on labour-management sustainability

According to Duanyi Cheng, the employee's labour lawyer and chief partner of the Laowei Law Firm, the factory's management and the employees' representatives mutually formed a "labour-management relations committee" on December 3rd. Employees can now go through the labour-capital relations committee to raise any appeals to the management, and can also use it to agree to any improvements that the management carries out.

Duanyi Cheng believes that the success of these negotiations could lead to prospects for future dialogue on labour-management sustainability. For managers it's apparent that when the government gets involved in these labour-management problems and are unable to resolve the employee's actual problems, they simply pacify the employees' appeals, and the problems return later, followed by another strike. For employees, China suppresses labour rights organisations, and employees have no "right of free association". Law firms can bridge the gap a bit, supplying the employees with the necessary legal help and hold trainings for negotiation tactics, but as a third party, it can only assist – the fate of the workers themselves lies in their own hands.

Establishing a collective bargaining system

Duanyi Cheng has closely followed labour issues for more than six years, and he believes that in Chinese factories – especially in the manufacturing industry – a collective bargaining system should be established: "This system could play a fundamental role in the future of China's industrial democracy and its political reform." He also emphasised that the international notion of "collective bargaining" and the current system in China, also translated as "collective bargaining" are vastly different – the Chinese system is carried out between the government and the management; in no way does it genuinely understand or represent the employees' actual appeal. China's "collective bargaining" system has been around for more than 20 years, yet it has failed to facilitate the establishment of a platform for labour-management dialogues: "Under its strong intervention, the managers can only see the government and not the employees. But during these recent negotiations, the employees, through their own strength, informed their bosses that ‘we are also essential factors of production'. Normally, the core mechanisms of a market economy slowly manifest themselves in the manager's eyes, but during China's 30+ years of reform and opening, because the government has always intervened, it never manifested. The employees must rely on their own strength to make China's market economy acknowledge that they are ‘factors of production' and not ‘bundled parts of production'."

Employees are a principal part of the negotiation

Liu Kaiming, founder of the Shenzhen Contemporary Social Observation Institute, said that although labour disputes in the Pearl River Delta region have been increasingly frequent, the majority of them have been pacified by government intervention (while the original grievances still exist). Other than at Guanxing Factory, there haven't been any other cases of successful negotiation without government intervention. "This outcome is incredibly rare. Their success can be attributed to the lawyer's help, and now, more and more workers are beginning to become aware of this fact. This is a very good way – having lawyers participate – employees will have a better idea of what they should be asking for, where they should compromise, and where they should stand their ground." But Liu Kaiming also reaffirms that despite having lawyers involved, the workers are still the principal part of the negotiation: "in group cases, lawyers can only act in an advisory form."
 

Source: gcpnews
 

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