Labour Rights

This is the WCWA 2016 report by Zhang Jun in both Chinese and English. The report is a brief summary of the major work done by WCWA in 2016. Since 2014, besides providing effective legal support for Walmart employees shops all over China, including preparing documents for litigation (arbitration), strategy and evidence for court cases, WCWA has become a major platform to support Walmart workers’ communicate with each other, in voicing their grievances and later in the nationwide campaign platform to resist Walmart’s Integrated Working hours System (IWHS).To better support the Walmart employees’ actions against the IWHS, the Association has tried hard to raise funds to support those having financial difficulties in hiring lawyers for their litigation.

Meng Han is found guilty and sentenced to 1 year, 9 months. This week, activist Meng Han was found guilty of “gathering a crowd to disturb social order” and has been given a 1 year and 9 month prison sentence. Since he has already been detained for 11 months, he will be released in September 2, 2017. We strongly condemn this sentence handed down to Meng Han who was simply educating workers about their rights. Meng Han has already been detained for months with only sporadic access to a lawyer, and his family have been repeatedly harassed. We call for Meng Han to be released. We call for an end to the repression of workers rights and the persecution of activists and their families.

This is the letter sent by; The Brotherhood of Railroad Signalman (BRS) to CEO of Walmart China, regarding to support Chinese Walmart workers; demand on its & Flexible Working Hour Scheduling

This May Day, protestors in Hong Kong took to the streets to demand the release of two labour activists arrested for organising with workers in the garment industry for better conditions.

Former Huizhou SKS workers and the Hong Kong labor rights groups including Globalization Monitor (GM), Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour (SACOM) and Asian TNC Monintoring Network (ATNC) staged an action in front of the store of Tommy Hilfiger at Tsim Sha Tsui today.  

New article written by Anita Chan. " It’s been chiseled into the minds of Chinese bureaucrats – they must “maintain social stability” to climb the career ladder. This amounts to a license for clamping down on any sign of disturbance. Increasing numbers of strikes have been met with vigorous suppression."

Due to Artigas’ unpaid social insurance and housing funds, more than one thousand workers of Shenzhen Artigas Leatherwear Co. Ltd. (Qing Sheng) went on strike on December 10, 2014. The strikers demand the company pay in full the unpaid social insurance and housing funds. The strikers even stay over many nights at open space near the factory gate in order to stop the shipping of products.  Below is the translation of the statement released by the striking Artigas workers on December 18th immediately after the suppression and arrests. In this sense, the statement is still a good reference for the direct voice of the strikers.  

A coalition of Cambodian garment workers’ unions has called on workers and labor rights supporters around the world to demand multinational apparel brands producing in Cambodia raise the wages.

June 20, More than 40 people from Hong Kong and Indonesia labour gorups gathered in front of the adidas office in Hong Kong to show solidarity to the workers in China and Indonesia. They are the Chinese workers in disputes with Dongguan Yue Yuen and Guangzhou Dynamic Casting, and the 1300 Indonesia workers from PDK who were unfairly dismissed in 2012. Among these factories, there is one thing in common: they are all producing for the international footwear giant adidas.

Between 5 April and 28 April 2014, workers from Yue Yuen Dongguan factory have gone on strike. Striker size flew up from 1,000 to 50,000 in only few days. Almost all factory workers have joined the strike, including frontline production workers and various ranking management staff. This shows the anger of workers towards government and the company has reached the limit. Reports say the strike expansion to Yue Yuen’s Jiangxi factory too. Until intervention of massive police force which forced the strikers to go back to work at the end of the month, the strike was forced to come to an end.