Mr. Piccolo
26th December 2014, 02:20
Labor disputes and labor protests were up in China during 2014. The Chinese government sees labor unrest as the primary threat to social stability in China.
According to Chun Han Wong of the Wall Street Journal:
Roughly 522,000 labor-arbitration cases were handled in the first nine months of this year, up 5.6% from the same period a year earlier, according to CASS data. Those cases involved some 721,000 people, up 11.1% from a year earlier.
In contrast, arbitration cases had declined in 2013, when nearly 1.5 million cases were logged over 12 months, 0.8% lower than the 2012 total, according to CASS.
“Mass incidents that stemmed from labor disputes have also increased,” CASS said. Most of these protests stemmed from disputes over unpaid wages, layoffs and compensation, work insurance and benefits, among other factors, it added.
The academy tracked 132 mass labor incidents from Feb. 21 to Nov. 7, of which 64 were related to wages and mainly affected the construction, garment and electronics sectors. It didn’t provide comparable figures from 2013.
Labor protests have also grown in scale. Some 52 protests in the first nine months of the year involved more than 1,000 people each, CASS said, citing data collated by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions.
Of these, seven incidents drew more than 5,000 participants, including two protests that featured crowds more than 10,000 strong, the academy said.
The CASS findings dovetailed with recent observations by China Labor Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based watchdog, which tracked a “big increase in worker protests” in recent months, partly fueled by the construction sector’s struggles with a slump in China’s property market.
The situation in China is interesting. I always had a sense that labor relations in China were worse than the regime let on. The CCP derives its legitimacy from its ability to ensure economic growth. If growth slows down significantly or if the country was hit by a major recession, I think we may see even more labor unrest in China.
According to Chun Han Wong of the Wall Street Journal:
Roughly 522,000 labor-arbitration cases were handled in the first nine months of this year, up 5.6% from the same period a year earlier, according to CASS data. Those cases involved some 721,000 people, up 11.1% from a year earlier.
In contrast, arbitration cases had declined in 2013, when nearly 1.5 million cases were logged over 12 months, 0.8% lower than the 2012 total, according to CASS.
“Mass incidents that stemmed from labor disputes have also increased,” CASS said. Most of these protests stemmed from disputes over unpaid wages, layoffs and compensation, work insurance and benefits, among other factors, it added.
The academy tracked 132 mass labor incidents from Feb. 21 to Nov. 7, of which 64 were related to wages and mainly affected the construction, garment and electronics sectors. It didn’t provide comparable figures from 2013.
Labor protests have also grown in scale. Some 52 protests in the first nine months of the year involved more than 1,000 people each, CASS said, citing data collated by the All-China Federation of Trade Unions.
Of these, seven incidents drew more than 5,000 participants, including two protests that featured crowds more than 10,000 strong, the academy said.
The CASS findings dovetailed with recent observations by China Labor Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based watchdog, which tracked a “big increase in worker protests” in recent months, partly fueled by the construction sector’s struggles with a slump in China’s property market.
The situation in China is interesting. I always had a sense that labor relations in China were worse than the regime let on. The CCP derives its legitimacy from its ability to ensure economic growth. If growth slows down significantly or if the country was hit by a major recession, I think we may see even more labor unrest in China.