In the two months since the Guangdong government revised draft legislation that would help establish a collective wage negotiation system in the province, Hong Kong business groups have mounted a sustained and increasingly alarmist and vitriolic lobbying campaign against the bill, which eventually succeeded postponing its submission to the upcoming session of the provincial legislature.

Labour disputes in China more than doubled between 2007 and 2009, underscoring rising dissatisfaction among factory workers and migrant labourers over low wages. Last year, Chinese courts handled 318,600 labour disputes. Considering that only a fraction of labour disputes find their way to courts, the actual number of disputes was likely far higher. This represented a 110 per cent increase in the number of disputes since 2007, according to statistics released by China's Supreme People's Court this week.

The outbreak of strikes at foreign-invested enterprises in China during the summer raises significant questions about the future of China’s industrial work force, and highlights a number of tensions at play. The questions involve different sectors of Chinese society, including business; government, including the state-controlled labor union; the All-China Federation of Labor Unions (ACFTU), and the work force. The core question is how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) will adjust to stronger demands from China’s workers, perhaps supported by a newly more active ACFTU – and the extent to which those demands are seen by the CCP as being at odds with the party-state’s fixation on maintaining social stability above all else. To complicate the picture further, central government support of more vigorous union activity may conflict with local governments’ concern to increase investment in industry.

William Nee and Geoffrey Crothall discuss how Hong Kong industries have teamed up to lobby against labour reform in Guangdong province. We also mention CLB's actions that helped counter this influence.