News from China. 60,000 Chinese workers strike.
The Chinese working class are rising to their feet. This gigantic force has the potential to change the world. Reprinted from the Internet Sean. O'Torain.
Strike at world's
largest sports shoe maker in Dongguan, China
A
strike against Yue Yuan International, world's large manufacturer of sport
shoes, began on April 14, 2014. It now includes 60,000 workers at all seven
factories in the Dongguan complex. Yue Yuan makes one-fifth of the world's
athletic shoes, including brands like Nike, Crocs, Adidas, Reebok. Puma, Asics,
New Balance, Timberland and Rockport.
The
strike at Hong Kong-headquartered Yue Yuan Industrial Holdings Limited (its
parent company is the Taiwanese-owned Pou Chen Group; until 2009 Yue Yuan was
one of the bluechip stocks in the Hang Seng Index of the Hong Kong Stock
Exchange), the largest athletic shoes manufacturer in the world, has spread
over 10 days and now includes over 60,000 workers. After recent strikes at IBM
and Walmart, also located in the Pearl River Delta, the walkout threatens to
spread throughout the region -- as did the Honda strike on Foshan in 2010; the
Yue Yuan stoppage has become the largest industrial action in China since then.
Workers went out after finding out that the legal work contracts they had been
signing with the company were actually fake and also that the company had been
significantly underpaying them in their social insurance for nearly 20 years.
Faced with the company's stubbornness and piecemeal offers, more and more
workers have joined and it has now ballooned to include a solidarity strike
from workers in another province also working for Yue Yuan.
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