In a set of unprecedented actions, workers in China went on wildcat strikes at three Walmart locations in China, one after another, in chain reaction fashion.
The mobile messaging app “WeChat” helped organize the strikes at locations over 900 miles apart.
Chinese leaders are already worried about social unrest due to the commodities crash and overcapacity in steel production that led to layoffs.
These strikes will heighten official fears about more labor unrest.
The Financial Times reports Walmart Workers Launch Wildcat Strikes Across China.
Walmart staff across China have launched a series of wildcat strikes against the company’s new working-hours system, in an unprecedented bout of nationwide co-ordination by workers.
Employees in one store in the southern city of Nanchang went on strike last Friday. By Monday the action had spread to a second store in Nanchang and to stores in Chengdu 1,500km away and Harbin in the country’s north-east.
“We will continue the strike until the company gives a satisfactory reply,” said Duan Yu, who works at the Walmart store in Bayi Square, Nanchang.
The strike has realised the Communist party’s fear of co-ordinated cross-country labour unrest just as China prepares to lay off millions of workers as a result of the industrial slowdown. The number of worker disputes in the country has soared in recent years, doubling from 2014 to reach 2,774 protests in 2015, according to China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based workers’ rights organisation.
“It is unprecedented for workers to organise this way,” said Anita Chan, a professor of sociology at Australian National University. “Most strikes are in one workplace. This is different — Walmart has many stores in China and uses the same management methods in all the stores. So these workers understand everyone’s situation: they are all the same.”
The rapid organisation of strikes has been helped by the mobile messaging platform WeChat. Zhang Jun, a former electrician at the Walmart store in Yantai City, Shandong, was one of several workers who set up the first Walmart Chinese Workers’ Association WeChat group.
WCWA has since multiplied into more than 40 WeChat groups, with about 20,000 members — a fifth of Walmart’s workforce in China — despite members suffering threats from Walmart management, according to Mr Zhang.
The wildcat strikes in China will play directly into union drives and protests against Walmart in the US.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
On a completely different subject: are you following the rainstorms in China: significant death, massive destruction to property and farm assets (animals, crops and buildings)?
David
I find it comical when communist countries have to deal with unions. They want communal power for the elites, but not communal rights for the workers. How cute.
Won’t this also scare the markets further to the safe havens of gold an silver??
Bob Runk
The Runkus Room http://www.bobrunk.com Music for Adults who Enjoy Actually Hearing the Lyrics.
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“Chinese leaders are already worried about social unrest due to the commodities crash and overcapacity in steel production that led to layoffs.”
Only a matter of time before China gets serious about devaluing … then their #1 global export will be DEFLATION.
Their #1 export will be hyperinflation because they will have lit the fuse. The endgame will be in sight.
Possibly down the road … but that would mean putting $$s in the hands of j6p … zero evidence of TPTB moving in that direction (outside of giving them credit … and that about played out as debt levels massive coupled with declining household income) … Japanization much more likely than hyperinflation.
Yup. They just need to have their 1929-style crash first – and that’s not very far off in the future.
Would be nice to see more of them close down. They are ugly to look at and ugly to work in and the business culture is run by charlatans. I fail to see any thing remotely positive in who and what they are. Burn in hell WMT.
This is an example of what Trump means when he says China, Japan and Korea cheat. The story isn’t over yet and it seems the government is treating Wal-Mart as it treats domestic companies, but like the Japanese protests that were allowed, it sounds a bit like more latitude is being given for Chinese to fight a foreign company.
And, pray tell, what is “cheat” supposed to mean? And “cheat” according to what supposedly God given rules.
Are Chinese companies “cheating”, by not being forced to spend so much money on their leaders’ orange hair color?
The sole and only example of Trump being “right”, is that he is less wrong about less stuff than Hillary. Meaning, his batting average at counting to three is above zero. Which is, of course, all that really matters, in this election cycle.
Yeah, China is a “currency manipulator”.Meanwhile, the US pays for its half-trillion-Dollar-a-year trade deficit with “money” (credit) created out of thin air.
Pot, meet Kettle.
Steel workers being laid off will gladly take the job of a striking Wal-Mart worker.
Yes, Walmart is hiring. Walmart could easily replace every striker at lower wages and fewer hours. Walmart jobs are easier than steel making, coal mining, and construction. Pickets better not challenge the burly coal miners as they cross the picket line.
Durr.
Chinese workers are not fools. Their government has engineered 100% pay rises for all of them every ten years since 1965. If Walmart is trying to treat them as it treats their US workers (d’ya think?) then Walmart is in for a nasty surprise which could see them ousted from China altogether.
Thank God there are still countries with real workers’ rights.
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