China moves ahead a bit, Wisconsin back a lot

As Wisconsin is stripping public employees of their collective bargaining rights, months of collective bargaining at a Honda parts plant in Guangdong between management and the local unit of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions won a substantial pay increase for workers on March 1.

According to “China Labor Bulletin,“ published in Hong Kong, the vice chairman of the Guangdong provincial labor federation became personally involved in the plant’s labor relations after a strike broke out there in May last year.

Although the union pressed hard for the worker demands, it left the workers on the sidelines, with 40 of them observing but not participating in the negotiations.

Han Dongfang, CLB director, commented: “Hopefully this will be the first step toward proper collective bargaining and that during the next round of bargaining, democratically-elected worker representatives will be allowed to conduct rather than just observe the negotiations.”