Shenzhen workers scent power

飞雪寒冰

At the end of a year of rising wages and spiralling raw material costs, it was not the kind of festive surprise Hong Kong businessmen with factories in southern China would have wanted.
过去的一年，工资水平不断上涨，原材料成本螺旋式攀升。在这样的一年即将结束之际，在华南开厂的香港商人们，又得到了自己不想要的那种“节日惊喜”。

But just two days before Christmas, a senior government official in Shenzhen, the populous city across the border from Hong Kong, said new guidelines that could allow employees to appoint their own union representatives were “almost approved” and would be launched “as soon as possible”.
距圣诞节只有两天的时候，在毗邻香港、人口众多的深圳市，一位高级官员表示，允许工人指定自己的工会代表的新指导方针“已基本上得到批准”，并将“尽快”出台。

飞雪寒冰

The statement was another sign that the balance of power has started to shift away from factory owners in favour of their employees following a spate of suicides at Foxconn, the Taiwanese-owned electronics company that supplies products to Apple and other multinationals, and wild-cat strikes at Japanese car parts companies in Guangdong last year.
去年，台资电子企业富士康(Foxconn)发生了一连串工人自杀事件，广东的日资汽车配件企业也爆发了多起工人自发组织的罢工。在那之后，力量的天平已开始从向工厂老板倾斜、转为倒向工人。上述官员的言论再次证明了这一点。富士康是苹果(Apple)等多家跨国公司的产品供应商。

The Shenzhen collective bargaining guidelines matter because – according to mainland China academics involved in earlier discussions of the proposals – the final version is likely to allow workers to elect their own union representatives, a significant change that could lead to more labour disputes.
深圳的“集体协商”指导方针具有重要意义，据参与草案前期讨论的中国内地学者表示，这是因为，该指导方针的最终版本有可能允许工人选举自己的工会代表——这一重大变化可能会引发更多劳资纠纷。

飞雪寒冰

Li Weining, 23, a worker at the Honda parts factory in Foshan where a strike took place in May, is already looking ahead to April when he expects his monthly salary to rise again from Rmb1,600 to about Rmb1,800 ($270). His salary was Rmb1,200 in 2009.
在去年5月爆发罢工的本田(Honda)佛山配件厂，23岁的工人黎伟宁（音译）已在企盼今年4月份再次加薪。他希望到那时，自己的月薪将从1600元人民币涨至约1800元人民币（合270美元）。2009年时，黎伟宁的月薪为1200元人民币。

In July and August, in response to a wave of labour unrest, the government of Guangdong, the southern province where many of China’s labour-intensive factories are located, put forward proposals entitled the “Democratic Management Rules of Enterprises”.
去年7月和8月，为应对风起云涌的劳资纠纷，广东省人大出台了《企业民主管理条例》草案。中国许多劳动密集型工厂都位于广东省。

飞雪寒冰

That anodyne moniker disguised a radically democratic idea: the government proposed that one-third of a factory’s board should be workers. “We were shocked,” says Stanley Lau, vice-chairman of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries and the owner of a watch manufacturing company.
尽管草案名称不痛不痒，但内容中却隐藏着一个激进的民主想法：广东省人大提议，工厂董事会三分之一的席位应由工人占据。“我们非常震惊，”香港工业总会(FHKI)副主席、钟表制造公司老板刘展灏(Stanley Lau)说道。

Responding to pressure from Hong Kong factory owners, the plan to have workers on factory boards was abandoned in November. But the guideline that a third of a factory’s workers can request collective salary negotiations remains.
由于来自香港工厂主的压力，让工人出任董事的计划去年11月被放弃。然而，工厂有三分之一工人提出要求、即须启动工资集体协商的规定被保留了下来。

飞雪寒冰

“If you ask the workers ‘Do you want to raise wages’, of course at least one-third will say yes. You will have to spend all your time dealing with this,” says Mr Lau.
刘展灏表示：“如果你问工人‘想不想加薪’，那当然至少会有三分之一的工人回答‘想’。那样的话，你不得不把时间都花在这上面。”

Labour activists see the issue differently. “Although the Hong Kong employers fought back, it’s now a real match between workers and employers,” says Han Dongfang, who runs the Hong Kong-based China Labour Bulletin.
劳工维权人士对这个问题有着不同的看法。香港《中国劳工通讯》(China Labour Bulletin)负责人韩东方(Han Dongfang)表示：“虽然香港雇主们进行了反击，但工人与老板间的斗争现在才真正开始。”

Pun Ngai, a professor at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, says that, since the labour unrest last year, the Shenzhen government and the All China Federation of Trade Unions are moving more on to the side of workers.
香港理工大学(Hong Kong Polytechnic University)教授潘毅(Pun Ngai)表示，去年爆发劳资纠纷以来，深圳市政府和中华全国总工会(All China Federation of Trade Unions)正日益站到工人一边。

飞雪寒冰

Mr Han believes the strikes last year made the government realise that the anger directed at factory owners could easily be turned against the government. “The government now realises that employers are making money but they pay the bill – the political bill,” he says.
韩东方认为，去年的罢工让政府意识到，冲着工厂老板的怒火很容易转而对准自己。他表示：“政府现在意识到，赚钱的是老板们，而埋单——政治账单——的却是自己。”

In July, workers in the Honda parts factory, such as Mr Li, elected their own representatives, which Prof Pun says is the first election of this kind that the ACFTU helped organise. The company declined to comment.
去年7月，包括黎伟宁在内的本田配件厂工人选出了自己的工会代表。潘毅教授表示，这是中华全国总工会协助组织的首次此类选举。本田方面拒绝置评。

Government officials are caught between the realities of labour shortages and higher inflation in the industrial hinterland of Guangdong and threats that employers may move elsewhere. But on November 30, China Daily quoted Ge Guoxing, deputy director- general of Guangdong’s labour department, as saying that the province may have to raise the minimum wage early this year from its current Rmb1,030 a month.
面对广东工业腹地劳动力短缺、通胀加剧的现实，以及工厂主可能把工厂迁至其它地区的潜在威胁，政府官员们陷入了两难境地。但去年11月30日，《中国日报》(China Daily)援引广东省人力资源和社会保障厅副厅长葛国兴的话报道称，广东省可能不得不在今年年初提高最低工资水平。目前，该省最低工资为每月1030元人民币。

飞雪寒冰

Mr Ge warned that the province was likely to face a labour shortage after the Chinese New Year in early February, when many migrant workers returned home. In December, Beijing’s municipality an-nounced a 21 per cent rise in the minimum wage, effective from January 1.
葛国兴警告称，今年2月初农历新年大量农民工返乡后，广东省很可能会面临劳动力短缺局面。去年12月，北京市政府宣布把北京最低工资标准提高21%，自今年1月1日起生效。

Regardless of the precise definition of collective bargaining in the labour laws expected soon, a belief in annual wage increases among Guangdong’s millions of migrant workers is likely to become a powerful, self-reinforcing dynamic.
预计“集体协商”的精确定义将很快出现在劳动法中，不管它如何定义，广东数百万农民工心目中的年度工资将会上涨的信念，都有可能会成为一种不断自我强化的有力趋势。