Chinese Workers are communicating just fine. We can learn from them.

Workers and bosses, employers and employees, whatever you want to call us, have different views of the world and speak different languages.  I sat through many negotiating sessions with the employers who would often refer to the “inability” to communicate or the “lack” of communication between the parties.

This is why we are always told, and unfortunately many workers believe it, that “professionals” and experts are needed to negotiate on our behalf so they can “communicate” our needs to the bosses; much like the Union leadership and their armies of lawyers are doing today (chuckle).

The truth is that we communicate only too well.  The obstacle to harmony is the class position from which we come.  The boss wants to buy our Labor power more cheaply and be freer to use it as they like and we want to sell it more dearly and have more control over its use. In the interests of space I am leaving out the actual struggle over the control and ownership of the productive process in general.

There have been numerous struggles in China of late as factory workers fight back against oppressive conditions.  The spate of suicides and a shortage of Labor has increased militancy among Chinese workers that has brought concessions from employers, especially foreign ones, for blue and white collar workers alike.

The recent strike at a Honda plant by an independent Union was supposed to be over but as workers re-entered the plant they went on go slows or refused to work at all; an inside strike or occupation almost.  The rise in struggles of independent Unions or groupings has forced many foreign corporations to increases wages. Some like Daimler have added bonuses for what the boss calls “good performance”.  The bosses’ criterion for good performance is ass kissing, working faster than others, an individual, selfish mentality and rabid anti-Unionism.

After the last suicide at Hon Hai (Foxconn) the company announced June 6 that it will raise the minimum wage for assembly workers from “2000 yuan ($292) a month from the legally required 900 yuan.”  That’s a significant rise. Hon Hai, like Honda, is a foreign firm which makes them more vulnerable to nationalist rhetoric.  Yum Brands Inc is the American company that owns KFC and Pizza hut and according to the Wall Street Journal, “has been playing hard ball in Labor negotiations” with its government sponsored Union.  Yum, with 3500 outlets got 48% of its operating profit from China in the first quarter.  State sanctioned Unions and poverty conditions are not a problem for US corporations obviously but in order to head of the increasing militancy Yum is increasing the minimum wage from 700 to 900 yuan and instituting an annual 5% pay increase.

Back at Honda, the Japanese bosses are frustrated.  They have tried everything to reach a state of harmony with the workers but there is a “communication gap” as one Honda executive put it; it seems to be spreading too as this is the third Honda plant to be struck in three weeks.

The experience of the Chinese working class in independent organizations is definitely in its infancy, and there are dangers ahead as the enemies of independent class action are everywhere as we explained in a previous post on this subject.

Workers speak many different languages, but language expresses ideas and thoughts and desires about the world around us.  If we think about it for one minute, as sellers of Labor power, as workers, we have everything in common with workers who speak a language different to our own. We might not understand that language, but it is what it expresses that matter and that is what identifies our commonality as a class.

Another Honda executive is worried about the situation and blames the level of hostility on “communication gaps with the workers.”

The workers involved in the latest Honda dispute have officially returned to work but are on go slow and conducting inside strikes. They returned because they thought the bosses would hire scabs—not difficult to understand for me, good old job protection.  The workers inside activity is to push for their demand for an increase in pay from 900 yuan a month to 1600. What's difficult to understand about that? Obviously, the boss doesn't agree, that's the communication issue.

US bosses, English bosses, no matter what their nationality, all bosses will agree with the Honda executive.  What the bosses want  is some force (normally Union officials like here in the US) to convince the workers to go against their class instincts. If you can’t convince them, trick them; and if all else fails, shoot them, but that has its complications.

The Chinese workers are communicating pretty clearly it seems to me, we need more of what they're doing here in the US.

"The enemy was the collective spirit.  I got hold of that spirit while it was still a seedling; I poisoned it, choked it, bludgeoned it if I had to, anything to be sure it would never blossom into a united workforce...."
 Martin Jay Levitt: Confessions of a Union Buster