Vaga grevista na China? (II)

Reuters - China labour strife silences Toyota, Honda plants:

Japanese auto giants Toyota and Honda said major car factories in south China halted work on Wednesday due to strikes at parts suppliers, as worker discontent continued to jolt the industry and unnerve investors.

The stoppages are the latest in a series of strikes over pay at parts suppliers in Guangdong and other parts of China.


Denso (Guangzhou Nansha) Co Ltd., which is owned by Japan's Denso Corp and supplies fuel injection equipment and other parts, stopped shipping on Monday. Some of its 1,200 workforce sat groups in front a plant warehouse on Wednesday.

"The salary is only 1,300 yuan ($191) a month, including meal subsidies, while my rent costs me 200 yuan a month," a worker surnamed Zhang from Hunan Province told China's official Xinhua news agency.

"I feel not respected by the human resources department. They often say, 'You can leave if you think other plants are better,' when we ask for something," another worker told Xinhua.

As a result of the Denso strike, a Toyota Motor Corp plant in Guangdong province that can make 360,000 vehicles a year has stood idle since Tuesday. Toyota said production would halt at the plant for all of Wednesday and did not know if it could restart on Thursday.

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The strikes have exposed the vulnerability of tight "just-in-time" supply chains to restive rural migrant workers impatient with wage levels they say lag far behind booming economic growth and company profits.


"The automotive sector in China, especially for foreign companies, is highly profitable, but there hasn't been an appropriate scaling of company profits and workers' earnings," said Chang Kai, a labour law professor at Renmin University in Beijing who earlier advised workers striking at another Honda parts plant.

"Strikes in an industry like this can have a copy-cat effect. Workers think, 'If you can settle your problems by striking, why can't I?'," he said.