China must lift the incomes of workers to protect stability, the country’s top official paper said yesterday, after the latest in a series of labor disputes briefly closed a supplier for Toyota Motor Corp.
The Toyoda Gosei plant, in the northern port city of Tianjin close to Beijing, was shut down on Tuesday by a strike, but employees went back to work the next day after managers agreed to discuss wage increases, a company spokesman said.
The firm, 43 percent owned by Toyota Motor and a supplier of items such as door components for compact cars, has not fallen behind its production schedule because it canceled a holiday on Wednesday, the spokesman said.
A Toyota Motor spokeswoman also said her company keeps some spare parts in inventory to allow it to cope with unexpected situations at its main auto plants in Tianjin.
A rash of walkouts in recent weeks has paralyzed several factories across China. The unusual display of worker assertiveness is sensitive for the ruling Communist Party, which fears movements that could undermine its legitimacy or grip on power.
The commentary on treatment of migrant workers in the People’s Daily newspaper, which acts as a channel for government thinking, did not mention the strikes.
However, echoing comments by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (溫家寶) earlier in the week, its author said the time had come to narrow the gap between the rich and poor, which it added was stifling consumer demand.
The “made-in-China” model is “facing a turning point,” the newspaper said.
It urged improved conditions for the migrant workers whose cheap labor has powered China’s export-led growth.
“What is important is achieving a relatively big improvement in the lives of ordinary people, especially wage laborers and their families,” said Tang Jun, a social policy researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a government think tank.
Also yesterday, a branch of US fast food restaurant KFC signed a collective labor contract in which it agreed to raise minimum wages by 200 yuan (US$29.30) a month, as demanded by a local trade union, the official Xinhua agency said.
The highest profile stoppage has been at a factory in southern Guangdong Province that makes locks for Honda Motor vehicles, where hundreds of employees have returned to work after days of protests, pending an outcome from wage negotiations today.
The sympathetic account of worker grievances in the state media suggests that Beijing wants to avoid outright confrontation with the workers and may welcome some concessions.
This week, Wen also urged better treatment of the nation’s many millions of migrant workers.
He told some of them that “all parts of society should treat young migrant workers as they would treat their own children.”
The strike at Honda Lock was the third to hit a Honda parts supplier in China in the last few weeks. The other two strikes, at suppliers producing transmissions and exhausts, were settled after workers received pay rises.
The People’s Daily said that as China’s supply of young, cheap workers from the countryside tightens, the country must focus on improving skills and shifting to service jobs.
That shift will also require giving workers thicker pay packets to spend on consumption and services, the paper said.
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