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1 Talking Point 6 Week in 60 Seconds 7 Internet and Tech Week in China 8 Economy 9 Property 11 China Consumer 12 Shipping 13 Energy and Resources 15 February 2013 14 Society and Culture Issue 182 17 And Finally www.weekinchina.com 18 The Back Page Votes for the proletariat? m o c . n i e t s p e a t i n e b . w w w News that Foxconn will allow its 1.2 million workers to vote for union representatives causes stir Brought to you by Week in China Talking Point 15 February 2013 A proletarian revolution? Does Foxconn’s union vote mark a new departure for labour politics? Anyone seen our union rep? his time last year Foxconn’s worker who told him there could be complaining about low pay and Tmanagement faced an unex - industrial action if the newly im - poor working conditions for its pected twist in its labour relations. posed 49-hour limit on working workers. Under pressure from its interna - hours is not lifted. In part due to pressure from its tional customers – principally Apple That’s created an “unusual sce - clients, Foxconn has sought to im - – the world’s largest manufacturer nario” says Auret Van Heerden of prove its labour relations. Indeed of consumer electronics had prom - the Fair Labor Association. Bizarrely, the big news last week was that the ised limits to the overtime de - it’s now possible that Foxconn’s firm’s workers will soon be able to manded of staff each week. But far workers might go on strike to force elect their union representatives –a from welcoming the new restric - management to let them work groundbreaking change not just for tions, Foxconn’s million-plus army longer. What would Karl Marx make the company but China. of workers were soon demanding of that? the right to work more hours. It would also pose a strange How do unions work in China to - “We are here to work and not to quandary for Foxconn’s mostly day? play, so our income is very impor - American clients. In terms of numbers, China’s trade tant,” a 25 year-old worker told As WiC reported as far back as unions are gigantic. Nearly one out Reuters. issue 63, the Taiwanese firm has of every five Chinese is a paid-up P h o t o The dispute rumbles on. A radio long struggled with a litany of bad member, the China Daily reported S o u r reporter from America’s NPR vis - PR – from staff throwing them - in January, with total membership c e : R e ited Foxconn’s Shenzhen factory selves off its factory rooftops to in - now reaching 258 million, more u t e r s last month. He interviewed another ternational labour activists than all the other unions put to - 1 Week in China Talking Point 15 February 2013 gether worldwide. municipal union told the Southern But the huge number of Metropolis Daily at the time that unionised workers doesn’t equate 163 other enterprises in the city to proportionate power for the would have similar votes when rank-and-file. Despite their title as their own union officials came up “the nation’s leading class” (as per for re-election. the constitution no less), China’s None of these cases has the sym - workers have generally trailed other bolism of more open union elec - sections of society in economic tions at Foxconn. In part that’s due progress since the early 1980s to scale: Foxconn is China’s largest (when the market reform era began private sector employer (it has well in earnest). over a million staff). But it’s also be - In fact, there is only one union in cause the Taiwanese firm has be - China, the All China Federation of come an unwilling crucible for the Trade Unions (ACFTU), below which wider sense of grievance felt by stretches a lengthy chain of sub- many Chinese workers, following a unions set up by province, industry, Riot control at a Foxconn site series of unofficial strikes (main - municipality and district all the way land media reported on the latest in down to the workplace. it will push for worker demands in Beijing at the end of January) and The ACFTU has been awarded its specific instances (especially, it even a factory riot (in Taiyuan last monopoly for a reason. While it has seems, if foreign-owned enter - year, see WiC166). been pushing more keenly for leg - prises are involved) it won’t do so if Also, although it has no con - islation and dispute resolution it means that the higher priorities sumer brands itself, Foxconn gets favouring workers in recent years, it of maintaining social stability and the spotlight because it plays a cru - doesn’t represent their interests in fuelling economic growth are com - cial role in the global supply chain, the adversarial way often associ - promised. most famously making products for ated with unions in other parts of Apple but also for other brands like the world. But the talk of Foxconn’s workers Dell, HP and Sony. In fact, it pro - Instead it serves much more as a having more of a say is new? duces an estimated 40% of the government agency, with loyalty to Not completely. Projects with more world’s consumer electronics, the Party taking precedence over of a grassroots vote have been tri - which makes what happens in its the interests of its members. The alled on a piecemeal basis in the factories more telling from a media setting up of independent, alterna - past. The most recent was in May perspective than for more non-de - tive unions is illegal and although last year, when workers at Japanese- script Chinese SOEs. That’s also why there is no legislation specifically owned Ohms Electronics in Shen - news of its union elections has gar - banning stoppages, the right to zhen elected a new union chief. This nered so many headlines. strike was removed from the Chi - wasn’t a direct election in the sense nese constitution in 1982. Grass - of “one member, one vote”. After a Isn’t Foxconn an unlikely candi - roots worker representation in strike over pay, the municipal union date as a reformer? union roles is limited, with the sen - agreed to a vote that would see It does look like an awkward role ior places usually taken by com - workers elect a committee of 70 by model, especially with Terry Gou at pany management or apparatchik secret ballot. The committee was the helm of Hon Hai, Foxconn’s Tai - appointees. In many cases workers then allowed to nominate candi - wanese parent. don’t even know who their union dates and vote for them. And ac - Gou leads Hon Hai in a paternal - representative is. cording to Elaine Sio-ieng Hui, a re - istic style in which employee opin - That means that industrial con - search assistant at the City ion hasn’t in the past seemed to be a frontations like the National Union University of Hong Kong, trade major priority (see WiC67 for a pro - of Miners’ bitter clash with the union officials retained the right to file of Gou). British government in the mid- nominate candidates for the top The company’s regimented ap - P h o t o eighties or the periodic general roles of union chair and vice-chair, proach to managing its staff has of - S o u r strikes that bring France’s trans - although the committee then got to fered easy column inches to its c e : R e port system to a standstill are un - choose between them. critics for some time. For instance, u t e r s thinkable for the ACFTU. Although A senior figure at Shenzhen’s in the wake of the suicide epidemic 2 Week in China Talking Point 15 February 2013 at Foxconn factories two years ago, reports that workers were being asked to sign contracts promising not to kill themselves were widely credited as accurate, despite denials from the company. This said some - thing for its reputation at the time. Then there was the account of Gou calling in the head of Taipei’s zoo to speak to his senior executives because he thought they had some - thing to learn from zoo keeping techniques. “Hon Hai has a workforce of over one million worldwide and as human beings are also animals, to Foxconn has 1.2 million workers making products like iPhones manage one million animals gives me a headache,“ Gou was reported to So the move is significant, then? people, and many thousands more have said at the corporate gathering. The early reports in the Financial than the votes held at other unions What was intended as a light- Times at the beginning of February in the past. But Xinhua’s description hearted remark resonated uneasily seemed to think so, calling the plans of the electoral process at Foxconn with allegations of sub-standard “nothing short of revolutionary” also suggests something similar to working conditions at Foxconn’s and “paving the way for the first- the Ohms vote in Shenzhen last year, factories. ever competitive elections among rather than a genuinely new depar - So is Foxconn now pushing for a 1.2 million workers”. ture. A “special team” is to be given more responsive union to counter But in contrast to the interna - responsibility for organising the its reputation as a harsh employer? tional press, the Chinese media has vote, the newspaper said, anony - An alternative view is that it had lit - made little mention of the Foxconn mously selecting candidates for tle choice, after Apple grew fearful initiative, including no obvious ref - union roles “after discussing with all that its own brand might be tar - erence in the Workers’ Daily, the workers” (which might take a while, nished alongside that of its key sup - ACFTU’s own newspaper.

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