April 8, 2021

The first point that is taken into account in any discussion of collective action in China is that, although the right to strike was removed from the Constitution of the People`s Republic of China in 1982, there is no legal prohibition on workers` strike action. Indeed, over the past ten years, there have been numerous strikes that have made headlines, including the Nanhai Honda Strike 2010, where workers received a 35 per cent (500 yuan per month) pay increase after resisting the local union; the 2014 Yue Yuen shoe factory strike in Dongguan, in which about 40,000 workers left their jobs for two weeks; the Lide shoe factory strike in 2015, in which workers insured millions of yuan in unpaid social security contributions; and federal strikes by tower crane operators and truck drivers in May and June 2018, respectively. During the year of reform in China, it could be argued that central and local governments were gradually dispossessing their power and influence in labour relations over private contractors. The lack of enforcement of legislation and legislation meant that employers essentially had a pass to dictate the pay and working conditions of their workers. It is therefore largely up to the workers themselves to ensure that labour law is applied, either through collective action (see below), or through the receipt of their complaints before an arbitral tribunal or through the courts. The question is whether new models of collective agreements in China will become a driving force for the promotion of workers` rights as human rights and, in particular, the eight fundamental principles of the International Labour Organization (ILO). The main challenges, of course, are the first two principles that require freedom of association and effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining. Independent trade unions are unthinkable under the monopoly of power of the Chinese Communist Party. In December 2015, the crackdown on self-employed centres and the detention of prominent activists confirmed that the Chinese state was prepared to use repressive means to regain workers` representation as the only ACFTU case.