Supporters of the magazine "Leihkeule" raise awareness of events at FAW-VW.
For a year, there has been a conflict in China involving agency workers at the FAW-VW joint venture in Changchun. This has not been an issue in Wolfsburg so far. However, this week activists, who work to promote the interests of agency workers and publish the magazine "Leihkeule", drew attention to the problems of colleagues. They protested in a street hall and also hung information leaflets in the city center.
The portal Labournet regularly reports on international labor disputes. It did so about the situation in Changchun, which, according to this source, was initially unspectacular and peaceful. The agency workers demanded more money and an alignment of social standards with those of the core workforce. "The protests of some 3,000 FAW-VW agency workers in Changchun in early November 2016 did not begin as protests: they wanted to negotiate compliance with Chinese labor laws at the factory and their social discrimination. They first chose their own delegation for negotiations that were already well underway and were mediated by the local trade union. Only when these negotiations were broken off abruptly and without result did they organize their protests independently and publicly," it said.
Volkswagen did not want to interfere in this case, since it had only kept a minority stake. On earlier requests from our newspaper, the works council gave the same explanation that this was due to the minority ownership.
In the meantime, the conflict had intensified. Fu Tianbo, spokesman for the workers' movement, was targeted by the Chinese authorities and arrested. The Internet portal of temporary workers has been shut down. Labournet concludes, "The actions of the Chinese authorities against the spokesman for the movement, Fu Tianbo, are a result of the total rejection of legitimate demands. For this reason, a criminal case has been constructed from operational problems as a pretext to repress the movement. Several grassroots groups from China and Hong Kong, individuals and also Labornet Germany are calling for the immediate release of Fu Tianbo and for negotiations on the legitimate demands of agency workers. " 60% of the joint venture FAW-VW belongs to the state-owned company FAW. Volkswagen holds 20 percent, Audi 10 percent. 10 percent is held by the Volkswagen China Investment Company Ltd.
Report from the local newspaper
source from: http://www.chefduzen.de/index.php?topic=28990.msg333275#msg333275