China faced its second wave of strikes in two years, as thousands of workers in industrial southern provinces—manufacturers for the world—walked out this fall. The strikes put heat on the country’s official union.

Last summer’s spontaneous auto worker strikes in China reverberated throughout the country and overseas. Will they rejuvenate Chinese unions?

“Our parents have suffered from this cheap labor market and now they are getting old. Do we want to follow in the footstep of our parents?” asks an anonymous Honda worker in China in an internet posting explaining the motivations behind a stunning two-week strike that shut down Honda’s production across the country.

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Workers’ rights advocates are calling on the Chinese government to investigate a ruthless November 21 knife attack on a prominent labor activist in Shenzhen, a major manufacturing center in southern China.

Shenzhen labor activist Huang Qingnan was stabbed November 21. This is not the first attack on Huang. In 1999, then a rank-and-file activist in a food factory, Huang was permanently disfigured when acid was thrown on his face while he slept in the factory dormitory.

Huang Qingnan works for the Dagongzhe Migrant Workers Center, a small group that counsels workers on their legal rights. The center has helped low-paid factory workers file hundreds of claims for injuries and unfair dismissals. Employers have been held liable for large amounts of severance pay, and it is assumed that an employer is behind the attack.

Expiration Date:
Wed, 01/30/2008 - 2:00pm