经济学人：佛山本田工人提出的难题罢工让政府和企业同样头痛

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　　和中国其他风起云涌的罢工行动相比，今年5月底的这场罢工虽然让本田公司的汽车生产陷入瘫痪，却还是相对谨慎的：没有组成罢工纠察队，没有同警方发生冲突，其他地方几乎也没有效仿。然而它的意义却十分重大，一方面它是中国规模最大，持续时间最长的发生在外资企业中罢工之一；另一方面，它还将一堆令人头痛的难题抛给了政府和在这块工业腹地办厂的老总们。
　　本田公司的官员表示，其位于广东佛山的零部件工厂已于6月2日恢复正常生产。这次由待遇问题引起的罢工（5月17日进行了短暂的罢工，5月21日再次罢工）不仅导致本田佛山工厂停产，还迫使本田在大陆所有依赖该厂的汽车装配厂暂时关闭。但问题可能再次激化，因为仍有一些工人不满本田提出的解决方案。
　　中国的罢工和抗议行为日益频繁。据官方媒体《瞭望》杂志去年12月报道，2009年第一季度，广东的劳资纠纷比2008年同期增加了近42%。而与广东仅一省之隔的浙江，其劳资纠纷的年增长率则达到了近160%。
　　2008年1月，一部旨在加强劳动者权益保护的法律出台，着实给工人们壮了胆。全球经济衰退令薪酬持续走低，这又增加了工人们的怨气。现在广东的工资已经开始回升，本月广东还将最低工资标准上调超过20%。但本田的困境表明，要求加薪的压力仍然很大。这次本田给出的解决方案承诺了24%的加薪。
　　大陆的官方媒体认为这次罢工并非坏事。英文报纸《中国日报》在一篇社论中警告，收入分配如果不向有利于劳动者的方向倾斜，就可能为已经剑拔弩张的劳资关系火上浇油。但本田罢工事件却也突出表明，由共产党控制的工会在缓和冲突上多么无能。这次，工会还让形势更为恶化。
　　中国年轻人经常一有机会就抨击日本人，因为他们认为日本没有为其在二战中 的暴行充分认罪。但在本田工厂里，比起他们的日本上司，中国员工更加忿恨的是工会。5月31日，当地政府派来了一百多名工会高层，其中一些人与试图走到门口同记者交谈的工人发生了肢体冲突。“他们就是黑社会，”一名工人控诉道，旁边另一名工人则向记者展示了他脸上一道长长的伤口，并称这是工会成员干的。
　　几位工人抱怨，虽然每个月都向工会交大约10元（1.5美元）的会费，但他们实际上根本没从工会获得过任何好处，更别说让工会协助同厂方交涉了。然而，工人们将罢工维持近两周的能力惊动了政府。正常情况下，工人抗议会很快平息，而工会往往站在企业这边。然而，本田罢工持续数日之后，政府似乎指示所有媒体对此事进行“冷处理”。他们很可能担心本田工人的执拗会激励其他工人采取类似行为（5月28日，现代公司的一家汽车配件厂也爆发了短暂罢工）。
　　广东著名博主温云超表示，跟风罢工也是有可能的（2008年末，大陆就出现了一股全国性的出租车司机罢工潮）。但大多数工厂还是企业管理层和他们的政府后台占据上风。他说，本田罢工事件的工人比较特殊，他们许多人都是技术学校来的实习生。同学的身份让他们比那些来自全国各地的农民工更容易组织起来。
　　6月2日，台湾鸿海精密工业有限公司的子公司富士康宣布给大陆工人提薪30%。促成这次加薪的并非罢工，而是最近发生在富士康深圳加工厂的的连环自杀事件。广东省省委书记汪洋也对这些员工的死亡做出回应，要求在非公有制企业中“完善”工会组织。但要工会脱离共产党的控制，目前仍是禁区。

英文原文：


Strikes are as big a problem for the government as they are for managers
The Economist | Jun 3rd 2010 | FOSHAN
AS CHINESE strikes go, the one that crippled Honda's car production in late May was relatively discreet: no picketing, no clashes with police, little sign of copycat action. But it was significant. The stoppage was one of the biggest and longest-running in an enterprise with foreign investors. And it has exposed worrying problems for the government and factory owners in China's industrial heartland.
Company officials said normal production resumed on June 2nd at the Honda Auto Parts Manufacturing Company's plant in an industrial zone on the edge of Foshan, a city in the southern province of Guangdong. The strike over wages (which broke out briefly on May 17th and began anew on May 21st) had halted production at the Foshan facility and forced the temporary closure of all Honda's car-assembly plants in China that depend on it. Trouble could flare anew. Some workers remain unhappy with a settlement offered by the Japanese firm.
Strikes and protests at factories are becoming more common. Outlook Weekly, an official magazine, reported in December that labour disputes in Guangdong in the first quarter of 2009 had risen by nearly 42% over the same period in 2008. In Zhejiang, a province up the coast, the annualised increase was almost 160%.
Workers have been emboldened by a law introduced in January 2008 aimed at strengthening their contractual rights. The global economic downturn kept wages down and increased workers' grievances. Now, wages in Guangdong have started growing again. This month the province raised minimum wage levels by more than 20%. Honda's troubles suggest upward pressure remains strong. The management's offer includes a 24% raise.
The official Chinese press sees this as no bad thing. China Daily, an English-language newspaper, warned in an editorial that a failure to "tilt income distribution" in favour of workers could "fuel already rising tensions" between labourers and employers. But the Honda strike has also highlighted how inept the Communist Party-controlled unions are in managing these tensions. In this case, the unions helped encourage them.
Young Chinese often seize any opportunity to castigate the Japanese, whom they see as insufficiently contrite for the atrocities of the second world war. But at the Honda plant, employees fume more about the factory's trade union than about Japanese managers. On May 31st more than a hundred high-level union members were sent to the factory by the local government. Some scuffled with workers who were trying to get to the gate to talk to reporters. "They're mafia," fumed one employee, as another showed a long cut on his face that he blamed on the union men.

Several workers complained that despite paying membership dues of around 10 yuan ($1.50) a month, they had received virtually nothing from the union, least of all help negotiating with managers. But their ability to keep up their strike for nearly two weeks seems to have rattled the government. Normally worker protests dissipate rapidly, with unions usually taking the side of managers. A few days into the Honda strike, however, the party's propaganda authorities secretly ordered the media to tone down their coverage. They may well have worried that the Honda workers' tenacity could inspire others (a brief strike did break out at a Hyundai car-parts factory on May 28th).
Wen Yunchao, a prominent blogger in Guangdong, says copycat strikes are a possibility (a wave of taxi-driver strikes swept China in late 2008). But at most factories, managers and their government backers will retain the upper hand. The Honda workers are unusual, he says, because many of them are "interns" sent by technical colleges. Their bonding as fellow students means they can organise themselves more easily than can workers who are usually migrants from different rural areas.
On June 2nd Foxconn, a subsidiary of Taiwan's Hon Hai Precision Industry Company, announced a 30% pay increase for its workers in China. This follows not a strike but a spate of suicides at a massive Foxconn plant in Guangdong's Shenzhen city. In response to the deaths, Wang Yang, Guangdong's party chief, called for unions in private enterprises to be "improved". Freeing them from the party's control, however, remains taboo.
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