From the Washington Post:
In Zhangshan, in southeastern China, about 1,700 workers at a Honda Lock factory, which makes locks and keys for Honda Motors, staged an unusual march through the city streets Friday morning, according to media reports and labor activists. The workers walked off the job Wednesday, demanding more pay and the right to elect their own union representatives — a direct affront to China’s official union, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions.
Two other Honda plants in Guangdong province remain idle because of work stoppages.
Meanwhile, the unrest spread to China’s other main industrial base in the Yangtze River Delta, when 2,000 workers at a Taiwanese computer parts plant walked off their jobs in Shanghai’s Pudong district.
In Kunshan city, in Jiangsu, just outside Shanghai, workers striking at a Taiwanese-owned rubber factory earlier this week clashed with police who tried to break up their protest. Workers this week also walked off the job at a Japanese industrial sewing machine plant in Xian and at a Taiwanese sporting goods factory in Jiujiang, in Jiangxi province.
Various economists, labor experts and activists said there were many more strikes and work stoppages rolling across China, but the unrest remained largely unreported in the country’s strictly controlled state-run media.
See also “Striking Honda China workers hold out for pay, union” from Reuters. Read more on this topic via CDT.
