Gli scioperi fanno conquistare potere ai lavoratori della Cina / Con l’aumento dei salari cinesi, potrebbero aumentare anche i prezzi del suo export
● Gli economisti rilevano che nello scorso anno la forza lavoro cinese si è dimostrata più audace, scioperi periodici nel Sud del paese, alcuni in gruppi internazionali, si sono conclusi facilmente, e non sono stati riferiti dai media.
● Il governo cinese, dopo anni in cui si è concentrato ad attrarre investimenti esteri, temendo proteste sociali contro gli aumenti dei prezzi di alimentari ed abitazione, cerca di ridurre il crescente divario ricchi-poveri, di migliorare le condizioni dei lavoratori e ad aumentare i salari.
o L’aumento dei salari voluto da Pechino mira anche a stimolare il consumo interno e a rendere il paese meno dipendente dall’export a basso prezzo;
o Il governo cinese spera anche di costringere alcuni gruppi volti all’export a investire in merci più innovative o ad maggior valore aggiunto.
– Un segnale dell’aumento del costo del lavoro in Cina è la decisione della città di Pechino di aumentare il salario minimo cittadino del 20% (+$140), a 960 renmimbi al mese, dagli 800 precedenti, a partire dal 1° luglio.
– Data la carenza di forza lavoro nelle città della costa dovuta:
o al calo della natalità e di conseguenza al ridotto numero di nuova forza lavoro;
o al fatto che molti lavoratori migranti dell’interno cercano lavoro nelle piccole città più vicine che ora offrono maggiori possibilità di lavoro grazie al boom economico,
– quest’anno diverse province e città della Cina hanno deciso di aumentare il loro minimo salariale del 10-20%.
– I lavoratori migranti ricevono un salario medio di $200/mese, e lavorano 6-7 giorni la settimana.
– Crescono i segnali dell’aumento del potere contrattuale della enorme forza lavoro migrante della Cina (cfr. scheda precedente su scioperi ed aumenti salariali dopo 2 settimane di sciopero(+24-32% per circa 1900 addetti) negli stabilimenti Honda nel Guandong e società di componentistica. Honda possiede una rete di strutture in Cina compresi 4 stabilimenti di auto e 3 di componentistica, 2 stabilimenti per produzione di moto, 2 di generatori, pompe etc., 3 centri di ricerca, escludendo le fabbriche aperte da sue filiali come Yutaka Giken …)
– Fabbriche nel Sud Cina che assumevano 18-24enni, ora assumono lavoratori molto più vecchi.
● Foxconn Technology, gigante dell’elettronica, da ottobre intende raddoppiare i salari di molti dei suoi 800 000 addetti in Cina, a 2 000 renmimbi, circa $300/mese. Gli aumenti salariali di Foxconn, uno dei maggiori esportatori della Cina, spingeranno altri gruppi a fare altrettanto.
● L’annuncio segue una serie di suicidi in due dei suoi campus di Shenzen (Sud), grandi come cittadine, e le critiche al trattamento della forza lavoro.
● Il tasso di ricambio in due suoi campus di Shenzen (oltre 400000 addetti) è di circa il 5% al mese, il che significa che ogni mese se ne vanno 20 000 salariati, che devono essere rimpiazzati.
– Foxconn, sussidiaria di Hon Hai Precision Industry di Taiwan produce per Apple, Dell e Hewlett-Packard.
– Fornisce ai suoi salariati, come migliaia di altre manifatture nel Sud Cina che hanno attratto la forza lavoro dalle campagne, oltre al lavoro tutti i servizi (dal cibo, ad un posto dove dormire e persino relazioni personali),
– Uno dei suoi campus di Shenzen (recintato) occupa 300 000 salariati e copre circa 1 miglio quadrato, cioè oltre 2,5 km2; all’interno ci sono dormitori, un ospedale, i pompieri, un internet point, ristoranti e filiali di banca.
– Foxconn sta pensando di trasferire la gestione dei suoi dormitori alle amministrazioni locali.
– TPV Technology, produttore in subappalto di monitor per computer ha circa 16 000 addetti in 5 città cinesi; a gennaio ha aumentato i salari del 15%, e intende aumentarli di nuovo, a luglio, per adeguarsi al livello salariale offerto dai concorrenti (vedi Foxconn).
– Con l’aumento dei salari orari nelle fabbriche della costa, ancora a 75centesimi di $;
o il rialzo minimo salariale da parte dei governi locali,
o e a fine anno la possibile rivalutazione del renmimbi sul $
● faranno aumentare il costo relativo della produzione manifatturiera in Cina.
● Potrebbe essere finita la fase, durata due decenni, in cui la Cina ha aiutato diversi gruppi internazionali ad abbassare costi e prezzi.
o I prodotti a basso valore aggiunto come l’abbigliamento potrebbero essere spostati nella Cina Occidentale o in Vietnam e Bagladesh,
o mentre rimarranno verosimilmente prodotti elettronici ad alta tecnologia come gli smartphone, che danno alti profitti, e perché la Cina ha costruito un’infrastruttura sofisticata e un sistema di controllo qualità.
o Costi del lavoro maggiori non significano la fine della produzione a basso costo in Cina, ma possono aiutare a modificare la composizione del settore manifatturiero cinese verso merci a maggior valore aggiunto, che non scomparirà grazie al suo enorme mercato interno.
A causa della crisi finanziaria internazionale diverse fabbriche sono state chiuse in Cina, e il governo ha di fatto legato di nuovo il renmimbi al $ per proteggere gli esportatori, contro le promesse di lasciarlo fluttuare più liberamente.
June 8, 2010
With Strikes, China’s Workers Seem to Gain Power
By DAVID BARBOZA and HIROKO TABUCHI
SHANGHAI — Just days after resolving a strike by agreeing to give substantial raises to 1,900 workers at its transmission factory, Honda Motor said Tuesday that employees at another of its parts plants in southern China had staged a walkout.
A Honda spokeswoman in Tokyo, Natsuno Asanuma, said workers at an exhaust-system factory in the city of Foshan had gone on strike Monday morning. She declined to say what demands they had made. But the walkout will force Honda to halt work Wednesday at one of its four auto assembly plants in China, the company said.
The four assembly factories had just reopened after closing for almost two weeks because of the earlier strike. It was unclear how long the assembly plant, Guangqi Honda Automobile, would remain closed.
– The second Honda strike comes amid growing signs that China’s huge migrant work force is gaining bargaining power. New pressure to raise pay and improve labor conditions is likely to raise the cost of doing business and could induce some companies to shift production elsewhere.
– Foxconn Technology — a giant contract electronics manufacturer that also raised wages in China this month — said Tuesday it was reconsidering the way it runs its operations there.
– The company, which has seen a string of suicides among workers at its sprawling, citylike campuses in the southern metropolis of Shenzhen, said it was considering turning the management of some of its worker dormitories over to local governments in China.
– “Because Foxconn is a commercial enterprise operating like a society, we’re responsible for almost everything for our workers, including their job, food, dorm and even personal relationships,” Arthur Huang, a Foxconn spokesman, said Tuesday. “That is too much for a single company. A company like Foxconn shouldn’t have so many functions.”
– Foxconn, a subsidiary of Hon Hai Precision Industry of Taiwan, makes devices for companies like Apple, Dell and Hewlett-Packard. Hon Hai’s shares fell more than 5 percent Tuesday in Taiwan, to their lowest since last August, after the company said it would seek to pass on its higher labor costs to clients.
As the company held annual shareholder meetings in Taipei and Hong Kong, small groups of people demonstrated outside, urging the company to improve conditions for workers.
– Turning over management of employee dormitories to the government authorities would be a dramatic change for Foxconn, which — like thousands of other manufacturers in southern China — has lured peasants from rural areas to work at giant, gated factory compounds.
– One of the company’s Shenzhen campuses employs 300,000 workers and covers about 1 square mile, or more than 2.5 square kilometers. The gated campus boasts high-rise dormitories, a hospital, a fire department, an Internet cafe and even restaurants and bank branches.
– Foxconn said Sunday that it planned to double the salaries of many of its 800,000 workers in China to 2,000 renminbi, or nearly $300, a month. The huge raise by one of the country’s biggest exporters seems likely to put pressure on other companies to follow suit, analysts say.
– Chairman Terry Gou told the Taipei shareholders’ meeting that the company was looking to shift some unspecified production from China to automated plants in Taiwan, Reuters reported.
– After years of focusing on luring foreign investment, Chinese officials are now endorsing efforts to improve conditions for workers and raise salaries. The government hopes the changes will ease a widening income gap between the rich and the poor and prevent social unrest over soaring food and housing prices.
– On Friday, Beijing’s municipal government said it would raise its minimum wage by 20 percent. Ma Jun, a Hong Kong-based economist at Deutsche Bank, said last week that more cities and provinces would soon raise their minimum wages 10 to 20 percent.
“We therefore believe that a faster-than-expected labor cost increase has now become a political imperative,” Mr. Ma said in a report, citing comments from Beijing’s leadership about improving social justice.
– But analysts say wage pressure is also coming from labor shortages in coastal cities as the country’s declining birth rate reduces the number of young people entering the work force.
● Factories in southern China that used to advertise in search of employees 18 to 24 years old are now recruiting much older workers.
– The labor shortages are being exacerbated by an economic boom and improving job prospects in inland provinces.
– TPV Technology, a contract manufacturer that produces computer monitors with about 16,000 workers in five cities in China, says it raised salaries by 15 percent in January and plans to raise them again, perhaps as early as July.
– “We’ll adjust our salary to the market and to our competitors’ level,” said Shane Tyau, a vice president at TPV, which is based in Hong Kong. “If Foxconn announces another round of pay raises, we’ll reconsider our wage level, too.”
– Economists say that China’s labor force is growing increasingly bold and that over the past year, periodic strikes in southern China — some even involving global companies — have been resolved quietly or not reported in the media.
– To resolve the strike at its transmission plant, Honda offered workers raises of 24 to 32 percent. The strike had forced Honda to shut down its assembly plants in China.
– Now Honda, Japan’s second-largest automaker, after Toyota Motor, has been a target again. The exhaust-system factory, which is controlled by a joint venture between a Honda subsidiary and a Chinese company.
– Honda owns a network of production facilities in China, including the four car assembly factories and three auto parts manufacturers, as well as two motorbike plants, two plants that make generators, pumps and other power equipment and three research centers.
– Those numbers do not include factories opened in China by Honda subsidiaries like Yutaka Giken, which separately runs four auto parts manufacturers in the country.
Honda denied Tuesday that it was vulnerable to more strikes because it had already shown a willingness to increase wages to get employees back to its production lines. “It’s not at all clear at this point whether the two strikes are related,” said Ms. Asanuma, the Honda spokeswoman.
“It’s too early at this point to say whether we are looking at some kind of chain reaction.”
Hiroko Tabuchi reported from Tokyo. Bao Beibei contributed research.
As China’s Wages Rise, Export Prices Could Follow
SHANGHAI — The cost of doing business in China is going up.
– Coastal factories are increasing hourly payments to workers. Local governments are raising minimum wage standards. And if China allows its currency, the renminbi, to appreciate against the United States dollar later this year, as many economists are predicting, the relative cost of manufacturing in China will almost certainly rise.
– The salaries of factory workers in China are still low compared to those in the United States and Europe: the hourly wage in southern China is only about 75 cents an hour. But economists say wage increases here will eventually ripple through the global economy, driving up the prices of goods as diverse as T-shirts, sneakers, computer servers and smartphones.
– “For a long time, China has been the anchor of global disinflation,” said Dong Tao, an economist at Credit Suisse, referring to how the two-decade-long shift to manufacturing in China helped many global companies lower costs and prices. “But this may be the beginning of the end of an era.”
The shift was illustrated Sunday, when Foxconn Technology, one of the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturers and the maker of well-known products that include Apple iPhones and Dell computer parts, said that it was planning to double the salaries of many of its 800,000 workers in China, beginning in October. The new monthly average would be 2,000 renminbi — about $300, at current exchange rates.
– The announcement follows a spate of suicides at two Foxconn campuses in southern China and criticism of the company’s labor practices.
Foxconn, based in Taiwan and employing more than 800,000 workers in China, said the salary increases were meant to improve the lives of its workers.
– Last week the Japanese automaker Honda said it had agreed to give about 1,900 workers at one of its plants in southern China raises of 24 to 32 percent, in hopes of ending a two-week strike, according to people briefed on the agreement. The new monthly average would be about $300, not counting overtime.
– And last Thursday, Beijing announced that it would raise the city’s minimum monthly wage by 20 percent, to 960 renminbi, or about $140. Many other cities are expected to follow suit.
– Analysts say the changes result from the growing clout of workers in China’s economy, and are also a response to the soaring food and housing prices that have eroded the spending power of workers from rural provinces. These workers, without factoring in the recent wage increases by some employers, typically earn $200 a month, working six or seven days a week.
– But there are other reasons. Analysts say Beijing is supporting wage increases as a way to stimulate domestic consumption and make the country less dependent on low-priced exports. The government hopes the move will force some export-oriented companies to invest in more innovative or higher-value goods.
– But Chinese policy makers also favor higher wages because they could help ease a widening income gap between the rich and the poor.
– Big manufacturers are moving to raise salaries because they are desperate to attract new workers at a time when many coastal factory cities are struggling with labor shortages.
– A Foxconn executive said last week that the turnover rate at its two Shenzhen campuses — which employ over 400,000 people — was about 5 percent a month, meaning that as many as 20,000 workers were leaving every month and needed to be replaced.
– Marshall W. Meyer, a China specialist at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, says that demographic changes in China are reducing the supply of young workers entering the labor force and that this is behind some of the wage pressure.
“Demography will do what the Strategic and Economic Dialogue hasn’t: raise the cost of Chinese goods,” he said, referring to United States-China talks on Chinese currency reform and other economic issues. “There is no way out.”
– Economists say many of the same forces that were at work in 2007 and 2008, when China’s economy was overheating, have returned and even intensified this year.
– Local governments have stepped up enforcement of labor and environmental regulations, driving up production costs.
– And perhaps most troubling for companies here is the prospect of an appreciating Chinese currency, which would make their exports more expensive overseas.
– Beijing has long promised to allow its currency to fluctuate more freely. But when the global financial crisis shuttered many Chinese factories, the government effectively repegged the renminbi to the dollar to protect exporters.
Pietra Rivoli, a professor of international business at Georgetown University and the author of “The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy,” says the effects of rising labor costs will vary by industry, perhaps with lower-valued goods like garments being forced to move to western China or even to Vietnam and Bangladesh.
– But she says high-end electronics like smartphones are likely to remain, because they command high profit margins and because China has built a sophisticated infrastructure and quality-control system.
“Labor is such a small piece of the pie for them,” Professor Rivoli says of the electronics brands. “The money’s all in the design, the marketing and the complicated distribution system, including retail outlets. Like with Apple, they have those rents in the shopping malls, fancy stores and all those hip people working there. That costs a lot.”
– Still, salary increases are expected to affect many stages of the supply chain and force some companies to raise prices. For many exporters who simply produce on contract for global brands, profit margins are already razor-thin, and raising prices could hurt business.
“They’re going to have to find a way to pass this on to the end user,” says Mr. Tao at Credit Suisse.
– Economists say a necessary restructuring is under way, one that should allow the nation’s huge “floating population” of migrant workers to better share in the benefits of growth and stimulate domestic consumption.
– United States and European Union[e] officials have been pressing China to help improve the global economy by consuming more and reducing the country’s huge trade surpluses.
– Rising labor costs here are not the end of cheap production in China, analysts say, but they are likely to help change the country’s manufacturing mix.
– “China isn’t going to lose its manufacturing base because it’s got a huge domestic market,” said Mary Gallagher, director of the Center for Chinese Studies at the University of Michigan. “But it will move them toward higher-end goods. And that matches the Chinese government’s ambition. They don’t just want to be the workshop of the world. They want to produce high-tech goods.”
– BEIJING (Reuters) — Beijing will increase the city’s minimum wage by 20 percent, state media reported on Thursday, the latest sign of rising labor costs in the world’s third-largest economy.
o Minimum wage in the Chinese capital will be increased to 960 renminbi ($140) a month from 800 renminbi on July 1, the official Xinhua news agency said.
– Provinces and cities throughout the country have raised their minimum wage this year as companies have reported growing labor shortages with migrant workers from the interior choosing to seek jobs in small cities closer to their homes.
– A strike at a Honda Motor car parts factory that began month was resolved Wednesday after the company offered its workers a 24 percent pay raise, showing how the balance of power in the country’s factories is gradually tipping toward workers.
– Stung by labor shortages and a rash of suicides at its factories in southern China, Foxconn Technology has raised the salaries of many of its Chinese workers by a third.