Forum on Factory Protests on NYT

The website of the New York Times has an interesting discussion on the recent problems at Foxconn and Honda in Southern China, and their backgrounds. NYT asked several specialists to give their opinions on what is happening in ‘the factory of the world’. Amongst them Yasheng Huang, professor of economics at MIT and author of the eye-opening book ‘Capitalism with Chinese Charactaristics’, about the role of the state in the Chinese economy.

Some quotes from Huangs comment on China’s labor situation:

The labor income share of Chinese G.D.P. declined from 57 percent in 1983 to only 37 percent in 2005. (…) This is to say that hundreds of millions of Chinese workers have lost relative to government and corporations, which, in terms of head counts, represent a tiny fraction of China’s massive population.

Some have argued that the U.S. firms need not worry because the labor component of their production costs is small. This is simply not true. U.S. firms themselves may not have a high labor component in their cost structure but their suppliers — and their suppliers — do. American firms, which sit at the top of the food chain, depend heavily on the labor-intensive operations down below.

Another specialist writing on the NYT forum is Leslie Chang, author of the famous book ‘Factory Girls‘, about workers in a factory in Donguan, Guangdong province. Some of her comments:

The new generation came of age when migration was already an accepted path to a better life. Younger and better educated than their predecessors, they are motivated less by the poverty of the countryside than by the opportunity of the city.

Although this generation of migrants is more demanding, that does not necessarily translate into more organized protests. Chinese workers are above all pragmatic, and the prospect of joining a large-scale demonstration seems risky and futile to most.

The universe of the factory can be a complicated place. Young people living away from home for the first time are learning to deal with co-workers, roommates, and bosses. They are adjusting to a world of material and sexual freedom, fleeting relationships and crushing loneliness. They face demands from families back home who often have little understanding of their new lives. These factors create a stressful environment from which, for a handful of workers, suicide seems the only escape. To boil this desperate act down to a protest against working conditions is to deny a worker’s complexity and humanity.

Read the whole forum here.

Discovery: manhattism in urban village

Today we discovered an interesting urban village in Lanzhou: a place which had a rigid structure of 18 x 18 meter blocks. The village transformed itself 20 years ago from a peasant town to a grid based, 5 floors urban area. The road system is very sophisticated, with a main road with cars dividing the village in two, a general access way through the village itself. Then there is sub access ways for bikes and pedestrians and alleys for pedestrians only. The buildings are 4 – 6 floors courtyard buildings, designed and built by the peasants themselves. They rent them out to migrant workers, and have become landlords.

Global Times – Change in residence permits won’t solve all problems

By Huang Jingjing

A nationwide push to let the migrant population enjoy the same benefits given to permanent residents by reforming hukou, or household registration system, is gaining support in many cities. But some experts warned that the migrant population could remain on the sidelines despite changes in the rules. Read the rest of this entry »

The Chinese Worker – Person of the Year 2009 – TIME

In China they have a word for it. baoba means “protect eight,” the 8% annual economic growth rate that officials believe is critical to ensuring social stability. A year ago, many thought hitting such a figure in 2009 was a pipe dream. But China has done it, and this year it remains the world’s fastest-growing major economy — and an economic stimulus for everyone else. Who deserves the credit? Above all, the tens of millions of workers who have left their homes, and often their families, to find work in the factories of China’s booming coastal cities — in plants like the Shenzhen Guangke Technology Co.’s, just outside Hong Kong, which sits amid a jumble of snack stands, cheap clothing stalls and old men dragging carts filled with candy to sell to workers on their day off. Near the factory we found some of the people who are leading the world to economic recovery: Chinese men and women, their struggles in the past, their thoughts on the present and their eyes on the future.

— with reporting by Jessie Jiang / Shenzhen

The Chinese Worker – Person of the Year 2009 – TIME.

China Daily: Chinese workers runners-up for Time’s person of the year

By Xin Zhiming (China Daily)
 Updated: 2009-12-18 07:09

In China, they are known as nongmingong, meaning “farmers-turned-workers”, a term that likely means more in Chinese than it does in English. And now this important segment of the Chinese workforce – also known as migrant workers – have come to world prominence, thanks to Time magazine naming them runners-up to Ben Bernanke in its latest Person of the Year awards. Read the rest of this entry »