China Labour Net

Globalization monitor worked with more than 10 labor organizations, including Hong Kong Federation of Trade Union (HKCTU), ITUC/GUF Hong Kong Liaison Office (IHLO), Labor Education and Service Network (LESN), Student and scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM), Labour Action China (LAC), Worker Empowerment (WE), Indonesia migrant groups and representatives of GSBI Indonesia, Left21 and China Labour Net to organize a protest action at Adidas’ Hong Kong Head office on Monday July 15. At the same time Taiwan labor groups and unions and Chinese workers also organized similar protests at Adidas’ local flagship store and office. All the groups staged common demands to Adidas, including the demands that Adidas’ Taiwanese suppliers, Dynamic Casting and Stella Footwear, provide immediate compensation for their workers with occupational diseases, that Adidas improve the production environment of all its suppliers, that it implement industry reform, and take responsibility for its poor oversight.

More than 200 workers at the Zhongji Pile factory in Huizhou, Guangdong Province, surrounded the company’s office building June 30. They demanded that the five executives inside pay them.

我們甚至不用特別呼籲會員參與抗議，因為公司的同事全都到街上去，因為他們最近也經受著壓迫。（在穆爾西統治下）工會自由的法律沒有落實，相反工會成員被壓迫。我們也看到腐敗之蔓延，甚至超過在舊制度下。我們工資被扣減，同時誰想要求自己的權利，都被迫害。物價不斷上漲，工資又跟不上。我們舉行示威和靜坐，但都被當局打壓。同時，工廠和公司倒閉。工人的權利被忽視，甚至新憲法也如是。

Yesterday, half a milion people went to protest at the streets of Brazilian main cities. The transport system in Brazil is owned by private enterprises, and every year the ticket price increases above the inflation. The problem now is that, because of the world crises, the inflation is becoming higher than the people can stand. Moreover, the people are realizing that the benefits of holding the World Cup and the Olympic Games are not for all. The Brazilian biggest football stadium, Maracanã, has been renovated again, but this time it cost almost 6 hundred million for the state, and it is ready to be sold to a private company owned by Eike Batista, Brazilian richest man, whereas thousands of poor people have been removed from the center of the main cities without any safeguard.

揭發美國國家安全局侵犯全球互聯網和電話用戶私隱的愛德華．斯諾登目前正藏身香港，因為他相信香港「很重視言論自由和表達政治異見的權利」。他犧牲了自己的安逸的生活和自由，去捍衞大家的網絡與言論自由，這場仗不應該由他一個人來背負。

In the run up to the June 4th memorial, this article criticises Hong Kong right wing commentators, including publication ‘Passion Times’, who are attempting to mobilize an anti-memorial offensive by drawing nativist distinctions between Hong Kong and mainland China. The author argues that the nativists’ conclusions are completely wrong and that conflicts over mainland pregnant women giving birth in Hong Kong and over milk powder should not be exaggerated. He maintains that there are many reasons, such as human rights and democracy, to participate in the June 4th memorial that do not have anything to do with patriotism. On the question of democratization, the author argues that a long term solution requires an understanding of the root cause, which lies not with the people from the mainland but with their autocratic rulers and bureaucratic capitalism.

In China the hukou system determines access to education, health care, social security and other such rights and benefits. This report gives details of the thresholds for different Chinese cities that are required in order to obtain an urban hukou. The graph shows the index of thresholds for different cities. Guangzhou requires outsiders to invest 5 million yuan in order to get a household registration there. Whereas in Shanghai, as investment is so high, the city prefers to use taxes paid as a criteria: one million yuan of tax payments are required. In Beijing the threshold is payment of 800,000 yuan of tax for three consecutive years. Hence in this graph, big cities like Shanghai and Beijing have very high threshold indexes.

On 6 May, UHKD received a written confirmation jointly signed by the four contractors of HIT, Everbest, Comcheung, Lem Wing and Pui Kee via the Labour Department. The four companies confirmed the new salary plan of 9.8% increase in the basic wage for all their employees at different works in the Kwai Chung Contrainer Terminals, effective for one year from 1 May 2013. In the workers’ meeting called by UHKD in the evening, members considered the written assurance by the four contractors with the Labour Department a step forward compared to the verbal, unilateral announcement these companies made on 3 May. Although the strike has not secured a collective bargaining agreement with the employers, the 40-day industrial action has broken the “tradition” of unilateralism and succeeded in forcing the contractors to seal a written confirmation about the pay and working conditions. UHKD believes that this is the first step towards building a mechanism of communication and negotiation between the employers and the union representing a large section of the contractual workers in the Hong Kong terminals.

By early Thursday the toll had hit more than 1000 injured and 194 killed in Bangladesh’s latest garment factory disaster. The recent factory, based in the Dhaka suburb of Savar was, like almost all garment factory’s in the world, a subcontractor. It produced for major brands: Primark, Benetton, Mango, and Wal-Mart. This disaster comes on the heels of Smart Export Garment Factory fire in January killed seven, and the Tazreen Fashion Fire in November that killed 111.

My name is Stephen Chan. I live in the New Territories, Hong Kong. I have two children - a boy and a girl. I've been working at the docks as a checker for 18 years. In 1995 I got paid 1,456 HKD ($188 USD) for a 24-hour shift. The companies cut our pay during SARS and the Asian economic crisis. At one point we were making as little as 1,060 HKD ($137 USD) for a 24-hour shift. Now I get paid 1,315 HKD ($169 USD) for a 24 hour shift.