We’ve received a great deal of feedback from people around the world following the release of our report Behind the Great Wall, and from an article in Friday’s New York Times which drew heavily on the report.
Two letters in Monday’s New York Times sum up what we’ve heard from many ordinary people in the US. One says in part:
Since when does China lead the United States on human rights?
I did a double take and had to reread the opening paragraph of your article.
While China is trying to support the right of workers to unionize and take decisive action against sweatshops, many American corporations are opposed to this because it will raise labor costs….
The other says:
First, our Congress approved new rules for the use of torture in interrogations, how much or how bad is allowable.
Now our Chamber of Commerce and some major American corporations are fighting against a new labor protection law in China.
Makes you proud to be an American, no?”
Yes, it’s still possible to be surprised by the cravenness of corporate behavior. We wrote, Behind the Great Wall, because we thought corporate opposition to labor reforms in China was particularly scandalous even in a world full of scandals.
But, in truth, it’s no wonder global companies want to maintain the status quo in China. They benefit greatly from wide open, unregulated labor markets and from its vast numbers of disciplined workers available for low pay. Employers now have all the power, but the proposed law establishes basic standards and would give workers some tools to improve their lot.
Chinese workers have not benefited much from the present system. They must navigate an extremely chaotic labor market in which they can be hired, fired, and cheated out of wages with little or no recourse. The ten’s of million of rural migrants forced off the land are especially vulnerable. Thrust into a Dickensian world of quasi-legal employment and tremendous insecurity they must sink or swim their own.
But these workers are far from passive: a nascent labor movement is emerging to challenge the status quo. A massive wave of wildcat strikes and protests is surging across China. The proposed new law is one response to this unrest. According to Liu Cheng, a professor of law at Shanghai Normal University and an advisor to the drafters of the proposed law:
The government is concerned because social turmoil can happen at any moment…..The government stresses social stability, so it needs to solve existing problems in society
The current law”, he adds, “is a paper tiger and is a disadvantage to those who obey it. If you don’t obey the law, you won’t be punished.
The dynamic at work in China is similar to what occurred in the industrial countries of the West in the early to mid decades of the 20th century: strikes and protests forced governments to set basic labor laws and regulations. In each country these were shaped by local conditions. As a result advanced capitalist countries like the U.S., Germany, France, and Japan have quite different labor laws and industrial relation systems, but each reflects a common set of labor rights and assumptions. China is no different: the provisions in the draft Chinese labor contract law are parallel to those found in many other countries, indeed are often modeled on those found in Western countries.
The new law will certainly not end China’s labor problems. It does not, for instance, provide workers with the right to independent trade unions with leaders of their own choosing and the right to strike. But it does, provide important rights, and is a solid step in the right direction. Indeed, the proposed law may well encourage workers to organize to demand the enforcement of the rights that the law offers.
If global companies complain that the proposed law will give Chinese workers rights that are also possessed by workers in a number of other countries, that is hardly a reasonable complaint. If they complain that the proposed law will raise the labor costs of foreign corporations because it will lead to higher wages, greater security of employment, and other protections for Chinese workers, then they are condemning something that most people – in both China and the rest of the world – would celebrate. Of course, it may be in the interest of global corporations to maintain the status quo; but then can they claim, without hypocrisy, that their operations in China improve the conditions of Chinese workers? Citizens, workers, and public officials in the US and throughout the world should ask: Has public policy encouraged corporate investment in China so that global corporations can lobby against great rights for Chinese workers?
M.O.
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