It appears as though the labor movement is finally waking up in China. Recent reports in the New York Times tell of several strikes at Honda factories, including the most recent one in Foshan that has closed down operations. Also in the news have been the Foxconn Technology facilities, in which a string of recent suicides has increased visibility and attention from the outside.
So what can we infer from these developments? According to the New York Times in this article, this strike is just another sign that “in a recent and remarkable shift of labor dynamics, China’s huge migrant work force is gaining bargaining power. New pressure to raise pay and improve labor conditions, coming in part from the Chinese government, is likely to raise the cost of doing business in China and could induce some companies to consider shifting production elsewhere.”
So if this is the case, will this new dynamic shift production elsewhere in Asia and Latin America? And could this potentially, in the long-term, improve working conditions and wages worldwide?
And see today’s NYT about a worker strike in China at a Honda plant: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/business/global/11strike.html?ref=asia
[...] As my colleague Kim posted on, labor markets in Asia are waking up to Western-style demands, such as wage strikes and be better working conditions. Many large tech firms possess complicated lateral supply chains — processors built in Malaysia using chips built in South Korea with a workforce from Vietnam. But on the other hand these supply chains are hardly that competitive. Foxconn Technology in Shenzen, China alone makes components for Apple, Dell and HP. And there have been some supply chain monitoring tools, such as the NGO GoodGuide, that have cropped up focusing on B to C consumer behavior. GG rates products in three areas — health, environment and society. [...]