BEIJING: Professor Chang Kai, a Beijing-based academic, was surprised to receive a phone call early this month from a young worker on strike at a Honda car parts factory in Guangdong province.
"Li Xiaojuan, one of the Honda worker representatives, called me on June 3 asking whether I could be their legal consultant in negotiations with management. I was really surprised when I learned that Li was just 19 years old and her colleagues were in their early twenties," Chang, director of the Institute of Labour Relations at Renmin University in Beijing and a guest professor at the University of Tokyo, said.
He was impressed that the young Honda worker had managed to find his mobile phone number and seek his help. The worker who took the initiative was just one of a new generation of savvy mainland migrants willing to push for better terms and greater respect on the factory floor.
Even the central government says it's impressed with the mainland's young migrant workers these days, with Premier Wen Jiabao telling about 50 of them in Beijing on Monday, June 14 that their work was "glorious and should be respected by society at large".
"The government and the public should be treating the young migrant workers like their own children," the People's Daily quoted Wen as saying in the wake of a series of strikes.
Moved by Li's call, Chang flew the very next day to Foshan, where Honda Auto Parts Manufacturing is based, to mediate in talks between the young workers and factory management. He did not charge for his services.
Chang told the striking Honda workers - bold and assertive but lacking in negotiating skills - to be more flexible.
"I told them their bottom line should be lower than their target of 800 yuan, because there is no such thing as a fixed price on a negotiating table."
The hastily formed negotiating team - a real blend of youth and experience - worked like a charm. After six hours of negotiations, a deal was reached that resulted in average pay rises of 500 yuan, no small victory for workers whose average monthly salary was just 1,500 yuan.
Independent labour rights activist Liu Kaiming , from the Shenzhen-based Institute for Contemporary Observation, is equally impressed by a new generation of mainland workers who increasingly know how to protect their rights.
"The young generation of migrant workers is very different from their parents because they are aware of the importance of protecting their human rights," Liu said. The workers at Honda Auto Parts were "pioneers" of the new generation.
"The Honda workers were not only brave but also smart because they knew how to use media power and other external forces to support their strike," he said.
A Honda worker said they told media in Foshan and neighbouring Guangzhou about their plans before going on strike on May 17. The strike at the factory, run by Japan's No 2 carmaker, quickly shifted the media focus from a spate of suicides at Foxconn's main factory complex in Shenzhen.
More Honda workers joined the strike on May 22 after management fired two strike leaders, both in their twenties.
The escalation of the dispute stopped the flow of parts from the factory and led to the shutting down of Honda's four car factories in Guangzhou and Wuhan.
The dispute came to a head on May 31, when dozens of workers scuffled with 100 local trade union representatives, who took the management's side and urged the strikers to return to work quickly, warning that they risked being fired if they did not.
Sixteen representatives were selected from among the 1,800 Honda workers on June 1 to replace their trade union and form a negotiating team to deal with management.
The workers said Honda, like Foxconn, discriminated against mainlanders, who could rise no higher than deputy department head. They said a Japanese intern told them that he was paid US$380 a day, more than 50 times more than a mainland worker.
"We are doing the same jobs. We know the gap in the cost of living between China and Japan is big, but we don't believe it could be as much as 50 times," one 21-year-old foundry worker said. "They (Honda management) just treat us as cheap labour because more than two-thirds of workers at our factory are interns, who are paid just 800-odd yuan a month."
However, thanks to Honda's 300 yuan lodging allowance, young workers are able to move out of company dormitories, where four to six young people share rooms of 10 square metres crowded with bunk beds, when they finish their internships.
That helps keep ties strong and also helped the workers organise the strike.
The foundry worker and two other 21-year-olds share a 100 square metre apartment with three bedrooms on the seventh floor of an old building without lifts in Songgang township. Their apartment is just 50 metres from the Honda workers' dormitory - an old hostel built in the early 1980s - and they can take a shuttle bus to the Honda factory in an industrial zone 20 kilometres away, saving on transport costs.
Living in such a relatively free environment helped the young workers formulate a comprehensive strike plan, including two strict rules, before walking off the job on May 17.
"Damaging machines or facilities at Honda and scuffling with people with different opinions, including our management, were strictly prohibited," one of the 21-year-old said.
"We said we should stick to the two rules because we are telling the public that we are all well-educated people and our fight is rational and reasonable." ' South China Morning Post
"Li Xiaojuan, one of the Honda worker representatives, called me on June 3 asking whether I could be their legal consultant in negotiations with management. I was really surprised when I learned that Li was just 19 years old and her colleagues were in their early twenties," Chang, director of the Institute of Labour Relations at Renmin University in Beijing and a guest professor at the University of Tokyo, said.
He was impressed that the young Honda worker had managed to find his mobile phone number and seek his help. The worker who took the initiative was just one of a new generation of savvy mainland migrants willing to push for better terms and greater respect on the factory floor.
Even the central government says it's impressed with the mainland's young migrant workers these days, with Premier Wen Jiabao telling about 50 of them in Beijing on Monday, June 14 that their work was "glorious and should be respected by society at large".
"The government and the public should be treating the young migrant workers like their own children," the People's Daily quoted Wen as saying in the wake of a series of strikes.
Moved by Li's call, Chang flew the very next day to Foshan, where Honda Auto Parts Manufacturing is based, to mediate in talks between the young workers and factory management. He did not charge for his services.
Chang told the striking Honda workers - bold and assertive but lacking in negotiating skills - to be more flexible.
"I told them their bottom line should be lower than their target of 800 yuan, because there is no such thing as a fixed price on a negotiating table."
The hastily formed negotiating team - a real blend of youth and experience - worked like a charm. After six hours of negotiations, a deal was reached that resulted in average pay rises of 500 yuan, no small victory for workers whose average monthly salary was just 1,500 yuan.
Independent labour rights activist Liu Kaiming , from the Shenzhen-based Institute for Contemporary Observation, is equally impressed by a new generation of mainland workers who increasingly know how to protect their rights.
"The young generation of migrant workers is very different from their parents because they are aware of the importance of protecting their human rights," Liu said. The workers at Honda Auto Parts were "pioneers" of the new generation.
"The Honda workers were not only brave but also smart because they knew how to use media power and other external forces to support their strike," he said.
A Honda worker said they told media in Foshan and neighbouring Guangzhou about their plans before going on strike on May 17. The strike at the factory, run by Japan's No 2 carmaker, quickly shifted the media focus from a spate of suicides at Foxconn's main factory complex in Shenzhen.
More Honda workers joined the strike on May 22 after management fired two strike leaders, both in their twenties.
The escalation of the dispute stopped the flow of parts from the factory and led to the shutting down of Honda's four car factories in Guangzhou and Wuhan.
The dispute came to a head on May 31, when dozens of workers scuffled with 100 local trade union representatives, who took the management's side and urged the strikers to return to work quickly, warning that they risked being fired if they did not.
Sixteen representatives were selected from among the 1,800 Honda workers on June 1 to replace their trade union and form a negotiating team to deal with management.
The workers said Honda, like Foxconn, discriminated against mainlanders, who could rise no higher than deputy department head. They said a Japanese intern told them that he was paid US$380 a day, more than 50 times more than a mainland worker.
"We are doing the same jobs. We know the gap in the cost of living between China and Japan is big, but we don't believe it could be as much as 50 times," one 21-year-old foundry worker said. "They (Honda management) just treat us as cheap labour because more than two-thirds of workers at our factory are interns, who are paid just 800-odd yuan a month."
However, thanks to Honda's 300 yuan lodging allowance, young workers are able to move out of company dormitories, where four to six young people share rooms of 10 square metres crowded with bunk beds, when they finish their internships.
That helps keep ties strong and also helped the workers organise the strike.
The foundry worker and two other 21-year-olds share a 100 square metre apartment with three bedrooms on the seventh floor of an old building without lifts in Songgang township. Their apartment is just 50 metres from the Honda workers' dormitory - an old hostel built in the early 1980s - and they can take a shuttle bus to the Honda factory in an industrial zone 20 kilometres away, saving on transport costs.
Living in such a relatively free environment helped the young workers formulate a comprehensive strike plan, including two strict rules, before walking off the job on May 17.
"Damaging machines or facilities at Honda and scuffling with people with different opinions, including our management, were strictly prohibited," one of the 21-year-old said.
"We said we should stick to the two rules because we are telling the public that we are all well-educated people and our fight is rational and reasonable." ' South China Morning Post
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