China: What future for the worker-class movement?

The international conference Transform! gathered recently in Vienna, bringing together researchers, trade unionists and campaigners from Chinese and European NGOs. Members there related their experiences regarding work-place struggles in China and Europe.

Major strikes broke out in 2010 among Honda workers at Foshan, in the province of Guangdong, and lasted several weeks, giving rise to a vast social movement in numerous China-based companies. This has created an unprecedented situation in the country with regard to the capacity for social mobilization and is the prolongation of the forging of a new working-class conscience there. The power of the movement has forced the government and the official All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) to respond on different levels. The demands of the workers refer to the representation of wage-labourers within companies, either by a transformation of ACFTU or by the emergence of autonomous organisations.