Unrest in the Future: Workers’ Strikes Spread Across China

Labor unrest is spreading across various industries in China, including the one that would have taken the lead in bringing the country future economic growth. And with how things are going, it looks like that the number of worker strikes will continue to grow in the next few weeks.

Just recently, workers protested in the city of Xi'an in front of an oil company's headquarters since late December over unpaid wages. Zou Zhanhai and his fellow workers have not gone home for the Lunar New Year to continue protesting.

In 2016, around 2,663 strikes and protests were recorded by the China Labour Bulletin. While this figure is a decrease of 112 compared to 2015, the total is still double that of the number in 2014. The spread of strikes to new sectors have partly offset the drop in the unrest in the manufacturing sector.

New economy refers to e-commerce such as online sales and services.

"The new economy is rife with the old labor problems of the past," said Keegan Elmer, a researcher at the Hong Kong-based worker's rights.

Elmer added that this figure is far from the real situation of China's labor unrest as the Labour Bulletin's tally is largely comprised of online reports which still goes through confirmation.

He estimates that this is only 10 percent of the real total in light of the far bigger but unverified reports produced by activists or sporadically made public by the government.

And unlike in the past, workers are now able to harness the power of the internet to popularize protests and their organizational capacity. This was demonstrated last year by a series of strikes waged against Walmart. The movement was coordinated on the social messaging platform WeChat.

While it seems that the government is trying to implement policies to address workers' issues, it seems that the workers do not feel the change they are looking for. The government must double its efforts if it sincerely cares for the working class.