Labour conflicts on the increase at Chinese electronics plants

How long does it really take to assemble a cell phone case?

At some electronics manufacturing plants in China, workers have just five seconds to complete the task. Most work for 10 hours a day, six days a week and with a monthly salary that hardly exceeds 2,300 Yuan (US$360).

This is what happens at the Flextronics Technology plant in the Jiading District of Shanghai, where over 6,000 workers have been on strike since last Monday.

Workers there are protesting against the company’s unilateral decision to move the plant to Suzhou Wuzhong, where overtime can reach 100 hours per month and labour conditions are much worse than in Shanghai.

“We’re not satisfied with the current plan. Nobody wants to move to Suzhou as the salary there is lower,” one worker, who declined to be named, said to the AFP newswire.

According to the US-based China Labor Watch, the workers were simply offered the chance to move to Suzhou, or to resign without severance pay. Labour activists claim that Flextronics has never allowed collective bargaining.

Flextronics International Ltd. is a Singaporean global leader in electronics manufacturing that in 2011 alone had revenues of over US$28.6 billion. The plant in Jiading district produces some of the world’s best known mobile and print devices, for brands like HP, Alcatel, Motorola, NCR, Nokia, Nortel and Toshiba.

On Sunday night, after the company refused to have talks over the plant transfer to Suzhou, hundreds of workers gathered outside the Shanghai factory.

They are now demanding that the company pay a penalty to each worker for severing their labour contracts and also give them a moving allowance. They are also asking the local government to provide them with subsidies.

Flextronics claims that actually it was the local government who requested that the factory move, since the entire area would be redeveloped.

The management said in a statement: “We are offering employees the option of relocating...or receiving an equitable severance package that is in accordance with company customs and exceeds local laws."

Local sources confirm that the company is now negotiating with workers’ representatives, offering one-month of average salary for each year of service plus 1,000 yuan (US$159) as a severance package.

This protest is the latest in a long series in the Chinese electronics industry over the past two years. The country was hit by a wave of strikes in 2011, with thousands of workers fighting for higher salaries and better working conditions.

Last month Foxconn, which produces 40 percent of the world’s electronics goods and employs 1.2 million workers in China, reached an agreement with Apple to improve working conditions at its plants.

The agreement came after the release of the US Fair Labor Association (FLA) report in March about exploitation and labour abuses at Foxconn plants and especially after the collective suicides committed by workers in 2010. The FLA itself has faced criticism for being too close to the companies which hire it.

However, in May over 200 Foxconn employees threatened suicide at the Wuhan plant after the management ignored demands for higher wages. The factory mainly produces Microsoft’s Xbox 360s.

According to Hong Kong’s MingPao Daily, the protesting workers had been transferred from other plants in Shenzhen and Yangtai, with longer working hours and less pay.

China Labor Watch has recently reported that there are widespread “legal and inhumane violations” in eight Samsung factories in China. Activists claim that children under the age of 16 are employed at a Samsung supplier, HEG Electronics in Huizhou.

The company replied denying the use of child labour and pledging that there would be inspections of its nearly 250 Chinese suppliers.