About 3,000 workers protested outside the Computime factory in Shenzhen on the morning of 6 October, blocking road traffic for four hours, in an effort to press the company’s management to ameliorate their exploitative conditions of employment.

The workers’ monthly basic pay was only around 230 Yuan – well below the 574 Yuan monthly minimum wage set by the Guangdong provincial government. Shenzhen is one of the richest cities on the mainland and the cost of living there is considerably higher than in the rest of the country.

One protester said: "We have to work 14 hours a day, seven days a week. The compensation for overtime is only 2 yuan an hour. We can't eke out a living with such a salary." Another worker added: "A lunchbox costs you about 12 yuan. With the salary we are getting, we can hardly feed ourselves."

The workers also said they have been forced to work long hours without a break. "Each time you go to the toilet you have to apply to the squad leader first and then sign your name on a logbook. If you spend more than five minutes in the loo, you will be fined," one worker said.

"The pay is so low. We are fighting for survival. We tried to negotiate with the management and we tried to complain to the government. But nobody cares about us," said one worker. "In the end we had to organise a protest. The government has itself to blame."

According to the Southern Metropolis News, city government officials had talked with the workers for about 30 minutes during the protest, but nearly 1,000 police officers and public security officers had been stationed outside the factory to keep order. The road blockage lasted for four hours from 8.30 AM until 12.20 PM, causing massive congestion that paralysed much of the city’s traffic.

Many Computime employers said they had suffered injuries resulting from their long working hours at the factory but had had to continue working without proper treatment as the company refused to pay medical insurance for them. “My leg was broken during an industrial accident,” said one worker, showing her injuries. "But I had to carry on with my work or otherwise I would lose my job."

Most of the workers are migrants from poor inland provinces who say they came to Shenzhen in the hope of earning money to send to their families, who are often living on the edge of poverty.

Workers’ Action Forces Company to the Negotiating Table

Computime, which employs about 4,000 workers, is a joint venture between Hong Kong businessman Auyeung Pok-hong and a mainland company. The workers said their Hong Kong boss had treated them well but their salary had been "taken away" by the mainland management.

The mass protest move forced management to back down and hold talks with the workers' representatives, and the workers won a 170 per cent pay rise the following day, according to the South China Morning Post. "The company told us this morning that our basic salary will be raised to 620 yuan. We will resume our work. Let's see if they live up to their promise at the end of this month. If not, we will take new action," said one of the workers. The factory resumed normal production on 7 October, although police officers were still stationed outside the building that day.

In a press release issued by Computime International in Hong Kong, the company maintained that it had given its manufacturing partner in Shenzhen sufficient pay and benefits to comply with the local government regulations. The company confirmed that normal production had resumed.

Meanwhile, a local official told Shenzhen newspapers that the police might still take legal action against the protesters. But the workers said they had conducted the rally only after exhausting all other channels of complaint.

The Computime workers seem to be lucky to have succeeded in winning back their wages by their labour action. However, hundreds and thousands of workers across China are vulnerable to the mainland legal system that they might face criminal prosecution by staging strikes to fight for their rights. One recent example is Du Hongqi, a factory worker and a trade unionist in Chongqing, who has been jailed for three years by the Nan’an District Court of Chongqing Municipality on 15 October for “assembling a crowd to disturb public order” after he allegedly encouraged several hundred workers to block the factory’s entrance for 15 days from 28 September to 20 October 2003 in protest against unfair layoffs .

Sources: South China Morning Post, Southern Metropolis News (Nanfang Dushi Bao)