Results tagged “labor”

In this video Al Jazeera reports on two elderly Beijing residents who tried to organize protests against evictions in the capital. For these women, who are both in their 70s, this has had far reaching consequences.

Dan Harris of China Law Blog brings us an interesting take on the new pay deal Wal-Mart struck on Friday with the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) in Quanzhou, Shenyang, and Shenzhen. As reported by Forbes, the U.S. retailer operates more than 100 of its namesake stores throughout China and employs 48,589 people. Its new agreement with its employees in Shenyang calls for an 8% pay increase in both 2008 and 2009. Harris remarks that a pay increase of the same amount next year sounds strange, since there's no telling what inflation will be a year from now: "Is this an admission by Wal-Mart that it wasn't paying enough?" he asks. The deal further marks Wal-Mart as "something of a poster child" for the Chinese government's drive to get all foreign-owned enterprises to recognize the ACFTU, Forbes writes, since it comes two years after Wal-Mart allowed the union to organize at its local outlets. "What happened to Wal-Mart is no surprise," Harris adds. He continues:

It is just another step in China's efforts to move away from being a destination for foreign companies seeking super low paid workers. Just as with so much else in China, we are seeing foreign companies getting out in front in terms of going along with what China wants to do with its economy. Domestic companies are and will continue to follow in terms of having to deal with unionized and higher paid employees... anybody who still thinks China will do anything for foreign investment is living in the past. Times have changed and China is getting more and more selective in terms of the foreign (and even domestic) companies it wants.

Way back in 1925, during the heyday of foreign imperialism in Shanghai, discontent was fomenting among the local populace over what were generally considered to be unfair privileges granted to foreigners and Chinese exclusion from the governing Shanghai Municipal Council. The deals the foreign powers had struck up with Manchu officials in the 19th century, suspect from the beginning, had little official legitimacy after the fall of the Qing more than ten years earlier. Tensions reached a boiling point when labor protests at a Japanese factory resulted in an assault and the death of a Chinese employee on May 15th.

Here's an English news link:

CHINESE police have rescued 33 intellectually disabled people forced to work at a building site by slave labour merchants after the apparent suicide of a detainee alerted authorities.

The Chinese press offers some information. For example, the report above says that about 2/3 of the 33 people discovered were mentally disabled, and that they came from all over China. The ringmasters behind this operation go to train stations around China and target people who are mentally disabled and lure them to Harbin with a promise of the princely sum of 60 RMB a day. Most of them were recruited in recent months, and everyday they were taken to and from the construction grounds where they did hard manual labor, like piling brick and moving sand. They were only allowed to eat porridge and vegetables, or leftovers from restaurants. And if they got out of line, there was always someone there to beat them back into submission.

Following up on yesterday's post about China's new holiday lineup for 2008, we now have the official official list of dates, so now everyone knows what Saturdays and Sundays they might be asked to work (and that nonsense starts soon). Here we go:

Well, then: Oops. What last month we said was going to happen, this month was made official. China has scrapped May holiday, one of its three Golden Weeks, and turned three traditional festivals into national holidays. Here's how your official 2008 Chinese holiday schedule now looks:

If you have never seen what a Chinese job fair looks like, you NEED to take a look at this clip. Recruitment fairs usually have more security guards for crowd control and police on standby than other fairs, but it looks like even the organisers of this most recent fair in Jiangxi were taken aback by the turnout. As captured on the clip, a stampede almost broke out but fortunately, it did not. The truth...

We don't feel right doing many concert reviews, mainly because of our relationships with the bands, and the realization after years of live shows that the quality depends as much on the venue, backline, PA, sound guy, etc...as it does the band. Plus we don't like to judge people who are capable of doing things we can't (clarification: we don't like judging people we think are cool, we have no problem judging all you uncool...

Despite the fact that Kevin Rudd - the fluent Mandarin speaking leader of the Australian Labor Party - is widely predicted to romp it in at the Australian Federal election this coming Saturday, it seems he's not taking any chances. The latest salvo in Rudd's "earnestness offensive" according to the Sydney Morning Herald, takes form in a seven-metre billboard of The Great Rudd (see right) that has been suspended above Cameron Road in Hong...

The guys behind CLB, Dan Harris and Steve Dickinson run their own law firm and according to them, they've been working with many of their clients to get into compliance quickly as hungry Chinese lawyers out there already have plaintiffs all lined up and ready to sue. So much for your harmonious society, eh?

This a rough translation of Fan Gui's response to Sun Liping's essay (which we wrote about here): 1. Regarding Sun's first point, I believe that he has ignored a very crucial fact—the growing gap between rich and poor. 20% of the population controls 80% of the wealth, how can you say that such a status quo has "flexibility"? While Professor Sun divides the population into urban and rural, does he mean that the urban poor...

Sun Liping is a professor of sociology at Qinghua University, and we recently read a short article he wrote about why Chinese society is going to remain stable. There have been several writers who have written responses to Professor Sun's article, but before we get to those we'll try to translate the gist of Professor Sun's article as best we can.

The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences recently published a report about how much income you need in order to be classified as white-collar in various Chinese cities. At the top of the list was Hong Kong, where you needed to make at least 18,500 RMB. As for some of the other cities:The benchmarks in some major cities at the upper end are: 8,900 yuan ($1,194) in Macao, 5,350 yuan ($717) in Shanghai, 5,280 yuan ($708)...

The video includes two images of Kevin Rudd cleverly photoshopped into old communist propaganda posters (yes, the type that you'd find in the Dongtai Lu antique market), and classic lines among the subtitles (which are supposed to the translation for the rubbish Chinese voiceovers) include "Rudd impress and frighten Australian person with his earnestness offensive," and "He unnerve decrepit Howard by deploying clever principle of 'similar difference'. Leader Rudd declares swift and violent Education Revolution." Ingenious. And as the Sydney Morning Herald notes, political parties with their multi-million dollar advertising budgets have a thing or two to learn from guerilla tactics such as these.

There isn't a live music update this week, but it's art shows galore TONIGHT. Three picks that aren't in your conventional Moganshan Lu / Taikang Lu destinations.

Food for thought this Sunday. From Jiang Xueqin & Brian Keeley's "The Unseen China" shot in 2003 (h/t to China Crossroads):

With the dust now settled on last week's APEC summit in Australia, we came on a juicy tidbit of news that either didn't get much mileage in the Chinese press or escaped the news that we read. Shanghaiist reader Fergus Ryan filled us in:

If you haven't noticed (perhaps you are a human ice cube?) it's hot out. Really hot. Today's forecast features a 36C high, which is 97F to the Americans in the audience, plus another 10-13 degrees for the heat index. Yesterday the mercury hit 39.6C, making it the hottest Shanghai day in 63 years.

CNN's John Vause says he's lost 10 pounds in recent weeks as reports of tainted food have come out in China.

Update: EastSouthWestNorth translates a story from Southern Metropolis Daily tracing how the story of the bogus buns was found to be fake, and says kudos to the netizens who raised the following doubts from the beginning:

While in America a non-delivery Chinese restaurant is an oxymoron, in China the most famous restaurants choose not to serve the lazy. However, everything is about to change!

The recent hoopla over poisonous, tainted, and otherwise malignant Chinese exports — toothpaste, toys, and pet food, oh my! — has left us with an unpleasant taste in our mouths (and not just the minty-fresh kind). Industrial malfeasance has become the bane of Chinese commerce, and we have no intention of downplaying the unique brand of terror experienced by a parent who realizes he just gave his kid a lead-addled plaything.

• 3 in US accused of enslaving Chinese acrobats
  Three men enslaved more than 20 Chinese acrobats, feeding and paying them little to work, and confiscating their passports and visas.


• 'Mass incidents' on rise as environment deteriorates
  Chinese people's refusal to accept an ever deteriorating environmental situation has resulted in a rising number of "mass incidents", the country's chief environment official said on Wednesday.


• Becoming Bill Gates' right-hand man
  Showing signs of genius even as a young boy, it was not surprising that Dr Zhang Yaqin would rise to become a right-hand man of the world's most powerful billionaire.

New York Yankees sign on first Chinese players.
The New York Yankees announced today that they have signed left-handed pitcher Kai Liu and catcher Zhenwang Zhang to minor league contracts, becoming the first Major League team to sign a player from the People's Republic of China with approval from the country's baseball association.

China Fines Six Banks for Lending to Stock Purchases

China's banking regulator fined six banks for making loans that were illegally invested in shares, the first sanctions announced after a yearlong investigation aimed at cooling speculation and curbing financial risks.

China’s growth sustainable

China’s double-digit economic growth remains sustainable with the rapid expansion expected to continue over the next few years, state media reported, citing a senior government advisor.

China Mobile eyes biggest ever Shanghai listing

China Mobile , the world's largest mobile phone operator, plans to raise more than $6 billion in a stock offer in Shanghai as early as next month that would be China's largest ever.

Microsoft will set up a SQL Server R&D Center in China

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates announced during his visit to China last month that his company would further expand its research and development institutes in Beijing and Shanghai.

Shanghai set to overtake Singapore as world`s busiest port

Shanghai is set to overtake Singapore as the world's busiest port in 2008 as the Chinese economy continues with its stellar growth, an executive of the city-state's port operator said in remarks published Monday.

Free dinosaur exhibition to open on July 10

Workers at Shanghai Science and Technology Museum today opened 59 cases containing more than 20 scarce dinosaur fossils from Zigong City, Sichuan Province, which will be exhibited at the museum for free from July 10 through August 31.

Shanghai's new height: 423.8 meters

The unfinished Shanghai World Financial Center eclipsed Jinmao Tower to become the tallest building on the Chinese mainland as it scraped the sky at 423.8 meters yesterday, exceeding Jinmao's 420.5 meters.

China's rural labor force shrinking fast

China will begin to feel the pain of labor shortages nationwide in the next couple of years - much earlier than previously forecast - as the country's seemingly ample supply of rural migrant workers dries up, say latest studies by state think-tanks.

China Confirms Demolition of Giant Buddha Statue At Tibetan Monastery

The Chinese authorities have acknowledged the 'removal' of a giant gold and copper plated statue of Guru Rinpoche (Padmasambhava) donated by Chinese Buddhists to Samye monastery in Tibet and demolished by Chinese People's Armed Police in mid-May.

Sudanese students flock to learn Chinese

Tong Xiaofeng, a Chinese professor at Khartoum University, says most of the Sudanese students in his class are motivated by money.

Taiwanese Upset at China's Policies

Many people in Taiwan are disappointed with the behaviour of the Chinese government, according to a poll by Taiwan Thinktank. 85 per cent of respondents think China’s efforts to exclude Taiwan from world bodies will affect two-way relations.

China's Alibaba plans HK IPO for $1 bln-report

Alibaba.com, China's biggest e-commerce company, will raise up to US$1 billion in a Hong Kong initial public offering this year, spurning the U.S. markets, the South China Morning Post reported on Monday.

Explaining the Vanishing Pirate

According to Xinhua, the Chinese state news agency, Chow Yun-fat's role in the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie was censored for "for vilifying and defacing the Chinese and insulting Singapore."

Danone Executives Targeted In Shanghai Protest

Dozens of employees from Chinese beverage giant Wahaha descended upon a five-star hotel and office complex in one of the city’s richest districts last week to shout their wrath at Groupe Danone of France for its attempted takeover activities.

Wahaha workers protest Danone bid

Dozens of Wahaha employees took to the street yesterday shouting "Oppose Danone" and "Boycott Danone" to protest the alleged takeover bid by Groupe Danone SA of its Chinese partner Wahaha.

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Photo by yunny.

Our round-up of some of last week's highlights from China's English-language blogosphere:

Face-lift after 'health check' on Xupu Bridge

"Xupu Bridge's 240 suspension cables are to have a large-scale renovation to make the bridge safer and more beautiful prior to the opening of World Expo 2010, the Shanghai Engineering Administrative Bureau has said." If no Expo, safety not an issue.

Frozen fish from China recalled as two in Chicago fall illfpr

"The list of potentially deadly products reaching the United States from China continued to grow Thursday, as an importer recalled frozen fish that may be tainted with a lethal toxin ..." Good thing we don't eat Chinese exports here in Shanghai!

City's first vegetable park opens in October

"Around the lake, several specific zones will be built such as one for vegetable picking, a rare vegetable exhibition room, a vegetable and fruit bar and children's world, the report said." We have marked our calendars.

The Bubble Theorists Have Shanghai Wrong

"But we don’t see any compelling parallels of doom at this time. China’s yuan is not in deflationary territory, like the dollar was in the late ‘90s, which helped cause the tech boom & bust."

City recalls drugs made by fake companies

"Shanghai's food and drug watchdog has ordered a city-wide recall of all drugs made by three local companies who are not registered drug makers, the Labor Daily reported today."

Disney Step Aside, Shijingshan Amusement Park Rules!

"A Taiwanese blogger named Sen Lin (森林) has written a tongue-in-cheek defence of Shijingshan Amusement Park. The piece is facetious, but sounds exactly like ostensibly serious arguments you hear in China every day."

City clears the air with smoke-free restaurants

"A program will train restaurant operators how to set up no-smoking areas for the sake of people's health, the Shanghai Association on Smoking Control said yesterday." We want a Shanghai Association on Smoking Control T-shirt.

Chinese Copycats Threaten US Firms, But Misinformation Is A Big Threat Too

"The article then trots out the bromide that 'China may look innovative...but observers say it's got a long way to go.' It then quotes (misquotes?) Andy Rothman at CLSA-Asia Pacific Markets, as saying 'there isn’t a single innovative Chinese company.”

No Dams in the Three Parallel Rivers Area, Yunnan Pleadges

"The Yunnan provincial government has announced that there will be 'absolutely' no dams built and no mines opened in the Three Parallel Rivers area, one of the World Natural Heritage sites listed by the UNESCO."

Coca Cola to give Chinese migrant workers AIDS awareness playing cards

"Coca Cola ... has launched a program to give 100,000 sets of playing cards with AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria prevention knowledge to Chinese migrant workers. The poker cards will be handed out at railway stations and construction sites..." Smart cards.

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Photo by Swiss James found via the Shanghaiist Contribute page.

Chinese monthy trade surplus nearly doubles

"...the February surge was caused by exporters shipping goods early to beat an expected change in taxes, leaving less to ship in March."

US engineer found guilty of 'spying' for China

"Mak was convicted on two counts of attempting to send sensitive material to China, acting as a foreign agent without notifying the US government and making false statements to federal agents."

133 punished for roles in mining disasters

"The serious accidents should be taken as 'lessons that have come at the cost of blood and lives,'"

Chinese stocks fall after high

"A stock-market bubble has been building rapidly,... The risk is getting higher that it will burst".

Is 2009 the year China's labourers get a pay rise?

"China may face a shortage in its work force in two years time because the amount of surplus labor will not be as great as has been estimated"

Foreign banks paying more for good Chinese staff

"Finding and retaining good personnel was ranked the second- most difficult aspect of the Chinese banking industry by the 40 foreign banks polled, behind regulation."

Have property investment laws for foreigners been relaxed?

"...deposits for land bidding can now not only be paid with RMB, but also US dollars, Hong Kong dollars, Japanese yen and euros, payable to the municipal land bureau. This was not the case in the past."

Subdued repsonse from China, South Korea, to Japanese PM's War Shrine Gift

"A Chinese government spokeswoman, Jiang Yu, told reporters that Yasukuni was an “important and sensitive political issue” and asked Japan to “strictly abide” by its pledges to cooperate with China."

China rubber stamps five-year space development plan

"China should give priority to a manned space flight, lunar exploration, new launch vehicle, high-resolution earth observation"

A CBA on the VTech massacre

"The authorities declared this case domestic despite Cho's legal status as a Korean citizen, while the media plastered the front pages citing "Korean" as his national origin."

Hangzhou announces humane stray canine crackdown

"The dogs will first receive tranquilizers to keep them calm before they are injected with a special medicine..."

Harbin's Songhua River rehab program to last 10 years.

"the rehabilitation effort for the Songhua River, one of the most heavily polluted rivers in the country, would remain in effect for 10 years"

A giant city needs a giant sewage plant

"The water that leaves the plant will still not be drinkable, however, and the city will still have a long way to go before all of its river discharges are properly treated"

Virus Suspected in Chinese Pig Deaths

"... tests to determine if the (Chinese) disease is porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, a viral disease... it is the costliest virus for swine herds in the United States."

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Photo by Christian Wind found via the Shanghaiist Contribute page.

Still recovering from your May Holiday partying? Well, there's no respite. Here are a few things that Shanghaiist is keeping an eye on over the coming week.