Found 1850 result(s). Page 7 of 185.
As China amends Election Law, real reform remains elusive
This week China finally amended its Election Law, which had previously skewed power towards urban residents at a ratio of 4:1. Meanwhile, in the United States, Barack Obama is making a putting all his political capital into trying to pass health care reform legislation. In the U.S., American presidents having been (unsuccessfully) pushing for health care reform for over 60 years, and yet their efforts are consistently blocked by entrenched political and economic internets. In China, implementing hukou reform and addressing urban-rural equality is proving to be similarly difficult.
15 March 2010
Global Post: Silicon Sweatshops
A three part investigation into the mystery illness of workers, and the death of one employee, at the Wintek factory in Suzhou supplying Apple and Nokia.
18 March 2010
Financial Times: China’s exports powerhouse lifts wages
Guangdong, the province that produces about a third of China’s exports, on Thursday announced plans to raise its minimum wage more than 20 per cent, fuelling inflation fears and dealing a blow to manufacturers emerging from the global credit crisis.
The province, which borders Hong Kong and forms part of the manufacturing powerhouse known as the Pearl River Delta in southern China, was not the first to introduce a mandatory wage rise this year, but the increase was sharply higher than the 13 per cent introduced by Jiangsu province last month.
19 March 2010
China’s “ant tribe” of university graduates starts to fight back
Han Dongfang talks to a university graduate who accepted a job selling pharmaceutical products that promised a base salary of 1,000 yuan plus commission. However, he discovered, the reality for sales personnel after recruitment was very different.
24 March 2010
LA Times: People, people everywhere in China, and not enough to work
In the labor market's pecking order, Chen Xiulan is at the very bottom. She is female, middle-aged and from the countryside and stands barely 5 feet tall. (Height requirements are common with Chinese employers.) Yet when the nearly 60-year-old grandmother from Sichuan province showed up in Shanghai last fall looking for work on the construction site of the sprawling World Expo, nobody laughed. Chen was handed a hard hat and a broom and put to work with the crew that sweeps up debris.
29 March 2010
Time Magazine: China and West Virginia: A Tale of Two Mine Disasters
Just as West Virginia families were hit with word of a deadly mine disaster on April 5, relatives of miners missing after a flood in China's coal belt welcomed some unexpected news. After eight days trapped underground, 115 coal miners in Shanxi province were dramatically rescued. In China, where mine disasters are grimly commonplace, the rescue was trumpeted as a miracle. And in the U.S., where mine safety is sometimes seen as a question that was resolved decades ago, the death of at least 25 men a painful reminder of the risks they face.
09 April 2010
New York Times: Rescuers in China Struggle to Free 153 Trapped Miners
Rescue workers in northern China struggled Monday to reach 153 miners trapped a day earlier when water gushed into a warren of tunnels dug for a new underground coal field.
Government officials say an additional 108 men scurried to safety as the mine began flooding Sunday afternoon. A preliminary investigation suggests that miners may have broken through to an adjacent subterranean pit where water had been accumulating, according to the official Xinhua news service.
30 March 2010
Foxconn suicides highlight the pressures on young factory workers in China
The death of a young migrant worker and the attempted suicide of a teenage employee at Foxconn’s Shenzhen factory this week have brought the reported number of suicide bids at the plant in the past month alone to five, with around a dozen unnatural deaths reported over the last two years.
09 April 2010
In These Times: China’s Labor Landscape. Debating Currency, Demanding Change
Last month, American workers got data confirming their worst fears: An Economic Policy Institute analysis revealed that China has sucked up hundreds of thousands of jobs that used to belong to the domestic economy. These reports coincide with growing political and economic tensions over the Chinese government's currency policies.
10 April 2010
At least 35 miners dead at China’s “miracle” coal mine
One week after the “miracle rescue” of 115 miners from a flooded coal mine in Shanxi, the death toll at the Wangjialing Mine has risen to 35, with three miners still unaccounted for. Meanwhile, the official Chinese media has suppressed the story that only last week dominated the headlines, and local government leaders are scrambling to placate and control grieving relatives and prevent any public protests.
13 April 2010