In early April, CLB’s Chinese-language website launched four new interactive maps, which we hope will give our audience a clearer picture of the new and rapidly changing developments in labour relations and workers’ rights in China.
The four maps, covering CLB’s labour rights litigation work, collective bargaining, strikes and protests, and changes in the minimum wage, are all regularly updated and show that although worker activism and government initiatives are most noticeable in Guangdong and the coastal provinces, such developments have now expanded to cover much of the interior as well.
One of CLB’s most important and longest-running projects is our labour rights litigation program in which we help workers with a genuine complaint go through arbitration and file lawsuits against their employer or government departments. We have now started to map some of the legal cases that can be publicised in the following five categories; anti-discrimination cases, general labour disputes, work-related injury cases, criminal cases and labour rights concern.
In addition to our legal work, CLB has been advocating for many years the development and implementation of collective bargaining in China. This year, local governments and trade unions across the country started to roll out new collective bargaining regulations and campaigns both at the industry and enterprise-level. CLB’s map shows just how extensive these initiatives have become.
The coastal regions have taken the lead in establishing collective bargaining systems, possibly out of the necessity to ease the tension between management and workers as evidenced by the increasing number of strikes this year. The punishment for enterprises in these regions for failing to establish a collective bargaining mechanism normally ranges from 5,000 yuan to 50,000 yuan.
As mentioned above, strikes and worker protests have been increasing and CLB is attempting to track as many of these developments as possible in our 2011 strike map. Strikes over wages have tended to occur mostly in the Pearl River Delta and coastal provinces like Shandong and Zhejiang but we have also seen a nationwide trend in transport strikes that extends into inland provinces like Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan. These taxi and bus driver protests have been largely caused by high fuel prices and business malpractice.
Finally, as in 2010, provinces and cities all over China are again increasing their local minimum wage. The 2011 minimum wage map shows that most coastal provinces raised their minimum wages in early 2011, with Shenzhen now having the highest monthly minimum wage in China at 1,320 yuan, followed by Ningbo with 1,310 yuan per month.
The four maps, covering CLB’s labour rights litigation work, collective bargaining, strikes and protests, and changes in the minimum wage, are all regularly updated and show that although worker activism and government initiatives are most noticeable in Guangdong and the coastal provinces, such developments have now expanded to cover much of the interior as well.
One of CLB’s most important and longest-running projects is our labour rights litigation program in which we help workers with a genuine complaint go through arbitration and file lawsuits against their employer or government departments. We have now started to map some of the legal cases that can be publicised in the following five categories; anti-discrimination cases, general labour disputes, work-related injury cases, criminal cases and labour rights concern.
In addition to our legal work, CLB has been advocating for many years the development and implementation of collective bargaining in China. This year, local governments and trade unions across the country started to roll out new collective bargaining regulations and campaigns both at the industry and enterprise-level. CLB’s map shows just how extensive these initiatives have become.
The coastal regions have taken the lead in establishing collective bargaining systems, possibly out of the necessity to ease the tension between management and workers as evidenced by the increasing number of strikes this year. The punishment for enterprises in these regions for failing to establish a collective bargaining mechanism normally ranges from 5,000 yuan to 50,000 yuan.
As mentioned above, strikes and worker protests have been increasing and CLB is attempting to track as many of these developments as possible in our 2011 strike map. Strikes over wages have tended to occur mostly in the Pearl River Delta and coastal provinces like Shandong and Zhejiang but we have also seen a nationwide trend in transport strikes that extends into inland provinces like Gansu, Sichuan and Yunnan. These taxi and bus driver protests have been largely caused by high fuel prices and business malpractice.
Finally, as in 2010, provinces and cities all over China are again increasing their local minimum wage. The 2011 minimum wage map shows that most coastal provinces raised their minimum wages in early 2011, with Shenzhen now having the highest monthly minimum wage in China at 1,320 yuan, followed by Ningbo with 1,310 yuan per month.