Apple Inc's suppliers in China have violated local labour laws when they imposed excessive overtime and skimped on insurance, a New York-based labour rights group said.

The first of February this year was a historic day in the Chinese village of Wukan. Several thousand villagers, who had chased out their corrupt old leaders, went to the polls to democratically elect new representatives. A few months later, on 27 May, there was another equally historic democratic election in a factory in nearby Shenzhen, when nearly 800 employees went to the polls to elect their new trade union representatives. These two elections, one in the countryside, the other in the workplace, both represent important milestones on the road towards genuine grassroots democracy in China.  

Nearly half the strikes and worker protests recorded by China Labour Bulletin in June ended up in some form of collective bargaining between management and workers, a sign that both labour and management are increasingly willing to use collective bargaining as a means of resolving labour disputes.Photograph: Strike at Guangzhou Citizen plant in June this year.

Peng Shun, a young migrant worker from Guangxi, talks to Han Dongfang about how he refused to be pushed around by the boss and cheated out of the compensation he was owed for a hand injury sustained at work.