Hundreds of workers at a department store in Shandong Province protest against wage deduction and long working hours

Several hundred department store workers in Shandong Province staged a strike in front of the store on the morning of 18 October, attracting a crowd of several thousand onlookers, just three days after it reopened under new management. According to media reports, workers were protesting against a wage deduction policy adopted by their new employer, Nanjing Central Group (also known as Nanjing Zhongshang).

Workers of Jining Department Store charged that they had been required to work for more than 20 hours each day after the store reopened on 15 October. They had only been able to rest for about two hours a day. They also claimed that deductions totalling over 30,000 yuan had been made from the wages of more than 100 workers during the first three days of business. The workers suspected that the purpose of this move was to drive away the more experienced workers.

Jining Department Store was previously one of the largest in the city, but poor business had resulted in bancruptcy. The city government then brought in capital from Nanjing to save the state-owned business. The Nanjing Zhongshang took over the business, including its debts. After renovations costing 10 million yuan, the store was reopened. (Nanjing Zhongshang recently acquired another department store in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, in a similar manner, according to a report in the Jinling Evening News, a Nanjing-based newspaper.)

Mingpao Daily reported that Jining City’s deputy mayor Li Guangsheng and Public Security Bureau chief Zhu Xianhai, together with other local government officials, had been to the scene of the protest to talk to the workers, telling them that the change of management had brought the business out of bankruptcy and was therefore in the workers’ interests. However the workers responded by chanting slogans such as “It’s corrupt officials like you who make us bankrupt.”

According to a report on Radio Free Asia, a store manager asserted that the strike had been provoked by “internal disagreement among the workers” and that the workers “were merely too exhausted after the reopening.” But he also admitted: “Did several hundred workers stage a strike here yesterday? Yes, it’s because our management is too strict.” The store manager then claimed that no workers would be fired “as they are part of the company’s wealth.”

RFA reported that the department store did not have a trade union and that the protesting workers had so far been unable to enter into negotiations with management. However, the PRC Labour Law specifies that no more than 36 hours per month overtime work is permitted in any workplace, on top of a maximum standard working week of 44 hours. The horrendously long working hours at the Jining Department Store should have prompted an immediate investigation by the local Bureau of Labour – but thus far nothing of the kind has taken place.

A security official at the store told China Labour Bulletin they were trying to pacify the workers and he believed they would return to work soon. However, no telephone calls to the department store, including to the general manager’s office and other traceable numbers in the building, were answered on 19 October, although a resident living nearby told CLB the department store had returned to business later that day.

When contacted by CLB, a member of staff of the Jining City Federation of Trade Unions said she only “knew a bit about the strike from private channels.” The local “Office of Helping Workers in Difficulty”, which is responsible for upholding labour rights, declined to answer our enquiries, saying: “The matter can only be clarified by our superiors.”

A spokesman of Jining City Public Security Bureau told CLB that he believed the workers staged the strike because they were unhappy about being forced to work overtime. He added that the strike had been peaceful. A traffic police officer in Jining City told CLB that his cousin had been one of the protesting workers and he believed wage deductions had been the main cause of the strike. He said that about 200 police officers had been sent to the scene of the strike to keep order on 18 October.

Jining Daily’s chief editor told CLB that the Chinese Communist Party’s Propaganda Department had ordered that all “sudden incidents”, including strikes and protests, should not be reported, and therefore his newspaper had not covered the protest. He added that they were restricted to using only information given by the city Party Committee’s Propaganda Department.

Sources: China Labour Bulletin, Radio Free Asia (19 October), Mingpao Daily (19 October), Jinling Evening News (30 September)

27 October 2004