E-ChinaCities says:
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.
Read more: http://www.echinacities.com/china-media/closer-to-labour-reform-china-s-first-successful.html
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