Strikes and labor protests in China are a new phenomenon. In the past, there was more talk of student protests for democracy. Now, workers are imposing their power on the capital police system in daily practice. They do not ask any government agency for permission to protest but do so by their own class decision. This is a real manifestation of the presence of workers as a class. The first labor protests and strikes took place in the summer of 2010 in southern China, in the large industrial province of Guangdong and its capital, Guangzhou. When a 23-year-old worker at a Honda factory loudly protested the difficult working conditions while working, a number of workers joined him. That same summer, several labor protests led to higher wages and better working conditions. This summer, several labor protests led to higher wages and better working conditions. Although the police regime has almost complete control over the communications system, the results of the strikes spread quickly and reached other workers in other areas of production. The increase in strikes and protests coincided with a slight decline in production and exports in China, especially in the south of the country, in the ports and in the province of Guangdong. Last year, more than one strike a day was reported in this province. Strikes are now a daily occurrence in China, and last year, major strikes occurred in all 31 provinces of the country. The movement is characterized by its focus and leadership in the construction industry, i.e., all of China’s manufacturing industries.
While most of the strikes have taken place in private companies, state-owned enterprises have also witnessed labor movements, and the numbers show that the trend in this sector, which accounts for about half of industrial production, is expanding. Economic forecasts from Hong Kong indicate that in the next three years, about 6 million workers in state-owned enterprises will be unemployed, and this will happen mostly in northern China, where the steel, mining and coal industries are concentrated. This is mainly due to the high organic composition of capital in these areas, which has increased their production power. This situation has not only made workers worried about the future of work but also forced the capital government to prepare difficult conditions for workers. Strikes and protests by Chinese workers have continued in the first months of 2016 with all the intensity of the end of the previous year, with more labor struggles taking place in the two months than in all of 2013. By mid-2016, the number of labor strikes in China had surpassed all of these movements in 2014 (1,442 compared to 1,380 in 2014, Figure 1), and had also increased significantly compared to the first half of 2015, which had seen the most strikes in the history of the Chinese labor movement (1,442 strikes in the first half of 2016 compared to 1,224 strikes in the same period in 2015). The most important feature of these strikes and demonstrations since late 2015 is that they have increasingly involved not only work stoppages and disruptions to the production of surplus value and profit, but also clashes with the police, arrests of workers, and the refusal of workers to back down.
The fact that workers do not go to capital and its government out of helplessness and begging is a characteristic of China’s independent labor movement, and this trend is getting more and more disastrous. In addition, workers not only include the condition of returning to work on the payment of arrears of wages, but even an increase in salaries and benefits in their platform. In nearly 31% of strikes, the police have intervened and, in some cases, the workers have been arrested, but this has not led to the cessation of strikes. Another change in the battle scene that has occurred is that the central and local governments have tried to play the role of mediator between workers and employers and even government managers in the past, but this tactic quickly lost its effectiveness, and now the scene has changed and they are entering into direct conflict with workers by threatening and sending police forces to demonstrations and strikers. In 2011, the police intervened in only 15% of strikes, and 50% of strikes were resolved through government mediation. In 2014, when the movement made a big leap, only 6% of strikes resulted in government mediation and 26% of strikes resulted in clashes with the police, with 29% of these resulting in the arrest of workers. Police involvement rose to 29% in 2015 and 30% so far this year, and the arrest of workers continues at a high rate.
Figure 1: Labor strikes in China from 2011 to the first half of 2016. Strikes and accompanying street protests continue to rage across China. Their numbers have not decreased but are increasing. Until now, it was thought that 2015 was the peak of strikes by the Chinese working class, but the current trend (2016) breaks all boundaries in the history of this class. Another feature of the Chinese labor movement is that the official organization of the (All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), which is directly under the government and party, is hated by the workers. This organization, which is an integral part of the Chinese capitalist bureaucracy, is rightly considered by all workers to be an organ of the owners of capital and those in power. This union is trying to impose itself on the workers through government laws to challenge the recent movement. Therefore, labor activists are trying to plan strikes and demonstrations in various ways outside the eyes of this organization.
Figure 2: 2011 saw 185 strikes across China, of which only 46% involved factories with a maximum of 100 workers, and 12% were large factories with between 1,000 and 10,000 striking workers.
In 2012, when strikes doubled, the proportion of different factories where workers stopped the wheel of surplus value production remained the same as the previous year, and even in 2013, when strikes nearly doubled from 2012, the proportion of different factories remained the same as in previous years. But a major development occurred in the strikes of 2014, which is still ongoing, and that is that more and more workers in small factories and workshops (the maximum number of workers is 100) are joining the strikes. Although the number of large factories where strikes occur is increasing, these are small workshops. On the other hand, it is the workers in large factories that are clashing with the police, so that during the past year 30% of strikes have led to police intervention, in 19% of which workers have been arrested. This trend was very clear during 2015, with 2,775 strikes, with all strikes in large and even medium-sized factories resulting in clashes with the police, resulting in the arrest of workers in 22% of these cases.
| Year | Reasons and causes of strikes (percentage of protests) | Type of workers’ action (as a percentage of total action) | ||
| Not receiving wages | Low wages, long working hours, and efforts for better working conditions | Strike and production stoppage | Demonstration | |
| 2011 | 54% | 21% | 75% | 7% |
| 2012 | 37% | 28% | 72% | 17% |
| 2013 | 24% | 19% | 90% | 7% |
| 2014 | 52% | 12% | 69% | 31% |
| 2015 | 75% | 5% | 65% | 31% |
| 2016 | 74% | 6.8% | 53% | 37% |
Table 1
At the beginning of the Chinese workers’ uprising, in addition to the long months of unpaid wages, about 20% of the protests and strikes revolved around low wages, long working hours, and efforts for better working conditions. But since late 2014, protests and shutdowns have increased class anger, leading to clashes with factory guards and police. The resentment and hatred stemming from the lack of wages is a source of resentment. In modern capitalism, when workers first mass produces surplus value for capital, capitalists shamelessly avoid paying workers the minimum wage, and this creates the greatest anger among workers. This is a phenomenon that Iranian workers see themselves sharing with their Chinese counterparts.
The anger that is evident among Chinese workers is just like that of Iranian workers, with the obvious difference that Chinese workers take action into their own hands and do not wait for fate, they stop the production wheel and thus make capital and its state unable to produce profits, they hold demonstrations and are not afraid of getting involved with the police. Perhaps the next action of Chinese workers when the capitalist prevents production, closes the factory door and dismisses the workers will be to occupy the factory and create a workers’ council. But so far what is being done is a show of strength and no retreat.
When workers in small factories join the massive protests and strikes, it is time to talk about a massive uprising of the Chinese working class. It seems that this is just the beginning of the Chinese labor movement, as Chinese capitalists plan to make conditions even more difficult for workers. In January 2016, China’s State Council decided to cut steel production by 100 to 150 million tons, which is expected to lead to hundreds of thousands of layoffs. The China Metal Industry Planning Association has announced that about 400,000 steel workers will be laid off. At the same time, China International Capital announced that the country’s economic planning to reduce production in the steel, coal, cement, aluminum and glass sectors will lead to the layoff of 3 million workers over the next 2 to 3 years.
It is said that this information is being deliberately leaked to prepare for the situation in the minds of workers. This is at a time when Chinese steel companies are facing declining profits and are now forcing workers to take leave. Working conditions are also getting worse in terms of safety. Steel prices fell by 37% last year, which was due to increased production capacity, which means a decrease in the value of this product. The market is saturated with iron and steel products, which is also a result of high labor productivity in this highly competitive international field of capital advance. Competition between steel companies (even between state-owned companies) has reached such proportions that planning to control production has become difficult because every capitalist is worried about losing the market. The Indian newspaper India Today called the situation in China extraordinary and predicted a wave of protests.
The London-based Markit Ltd., a global manufacturing research and analysis firm, reported on June 30, 2016, that China’s factories saw their lowest output in three years in the month, with layoffs and factory closures on the rise. But workers are also learning from their struggles, with the information system between workers in different sectors of the capital and between different regions of China growing exponentially over the past few years, which has led to the growth of class struggle. Another change in the way workers act, as seen in Table 1, is the increase in demonstrations and protests by workers over wages, working hours, and working conditions. An important point in this regard is that demonstrations are starting entirely in the workplace and moving to the streets, in front of factories, and in front of government agencies. Demonstrations take place during working hours, not on non-working days or hours. These points about the protests mean that the workers in practice not only stop profit-making but also call for the cooperation and support of other working classes, other factories and the working masses. They demand broader and more general pressure from the working masses on the capitalist state and the capitalists. This means the advancement of the class struggle of the Chinese workers from the factory to the streets, to larger institutions and, in short, to the political dimension of the Chinese working class movement.
Figure 3, the breakdown of the Chinese labor movement in terms of its type of action, namely strikes, clearly shows that large and medium-sized enterprises in 2016 have grown by several percent compared to the previous year. However, in general, strikes in the recent year have been less of a means of struggle and demonstration of the power of the working-class initiative than in the previous year. Instead, demonstrations, road closures, and protests have become channels for expressing the anger of Chinese workers. Comparing these figures with the Iranian labor movement yields valuable results. The total movements of Iranian workers during these nine months have witnessed 147 strikes, which is about 13 percent of the Iranian labor movement during this period. While in China this was about 58 percent in 2015 and 49 percent of the total labor movement in this country this year. However, the struggle of workers in the streets with the capitalist regime and the decrease in strikes, however insignificant, are not signs of progress in the labor movement, because the cessation of the wheel of profit production is one of the most obvious indicators of class power. It is also possible that in some places, especially in small industries, the use of this tactic has been limited due to the risk of dismissal.
| Year | Reasons for strikes (percent of protests) | |
| Not receiving wages | Low wages, long working hours, and efforts for better working conditions | |
| 2011 | 54% | 21% |
| 2012 | 37% | 28% |
| 2013 | 24% | 19% |
| 2014 | 52% | 12% |
| 2015 | 75% | 5% |
| 2016 | 76% | 7% + 3% Wage increase |
Table 2 One of the acute issues that Chinese workers, like Iranian workers, are struggling with is the production of surplus value and profits for capitalists without wages. For this reason, Table 1 clearly shows that Chinese workers have become increasingly miserable in the last six years. But this has not diminished their struggle and they are even thinking about better working conditions and better wages. Although this is constantly declining, it has grown by 3 percent in 2016. At the beginning of the uprising of Chinese workers, in addition to not receiving wages for long months, about 20% of the protests and strikes revolved around low wages, long working hours, and efforts for better working conditions. But since late 2014, protests and shutdowns of the production wheel have increased class anger, leading to clashes with factory guards and the police. The resentment and hatred stemming from not receiving wages is a result of the lack of wages. In modern capitalism, when workers first offered mass production of surplus value to capital, capitalists shamelessly avoid paying the minimum wage to workers, and this created the greatest anger among workers. This is a phenomenon that Iranian workers see themselves sharing with their Chinese counterparts. The anger that is evident among Chinese workers is exactly the same as that of Iranian workers, with the obvious difference that Chinese workers take action in their own hands and do not wait for fate, they stop the wheel of production and thus make capital and its state unable to produce profits, they hold demonstrations and are not afraid of getting involved with the police. Perhaps the next action of Chinese workers when the capitalist prevents production, closes the factory doors and dismisses the workers will be to occupy the factory and create a workers’ council.
A brief but inadequate explanation of China’s economic situation is that the economic growth of the capitalist world after the global crisis of 2007-2008 to date, despite all the efforts made by the powerful capitalist governments and despite all the illusions created by capitalist institutions to pretend that the crisis is over and the period of economic prosperity has arrived, is still miles away from reality and the real growth is very weak and insignificant. Meanwhile, the economy and production in China are in no better condition than other capitalist countries, which has a very serious impact on the economy of the entire capitalist world due to the dimensions of production and import and export of goods. The fall in the prices of metals, coal and various mineral commodities of capital, which has taken place as a result of the enormous growth of these industries, under the control of the growth of the productivity of labor in these areas of capital advance, has provided suitable fodder for commentators of popular economics, and among them those who consider themselves reformist socialists and supporters of the working class and have the illusion that they are engaged in criticizing capitalism, stare primitively and childishly at the fluctuations in the prices of commodities, and especially these capital commodities, in the market, and base all their interpretations on the fall in the prices of iron, pig iron, coal and oil, etc., as if their fall is the basis of the crisis. They do not have enough understanding of the foundations of capitalist political economy to be able to understand that the price of a commodity, which rises and falls in relation to supply and demand and is apparently unbalanced, has a fundamental basis in the value of the commodity, which is also determined according to socially necessary labor time. This basis is constant under certain conditions of production, that is, the degree of development of the social productive forces and the given productivity of labor, and it is not the case that it changes daily under the same conditions. The price of a commodity is something else and changes according to supply and demand, but somewhere it reaches a relatively constant price that reflects its value. It is the value of a commodity that causes the value of the commodity to decrease in the growth of labor productivity and the reduction of the labor force that is exploited in proportion to the fixed capital employed. The value of a commodity is completely dependent on the labor force that produces it, and when capital uses less and less labor force for production, it leads to the depreciation of each unit of production. Heavier capitals, with greater labor productivity, that is, less labor force, use a greater volume of fixed capital per unit of time, and this causes less surplus value to be hidden in the unit of commodity. This is the basis for the decline in the value of the commodity. The capitalist’s solution in this process is to produce as much of the same commodity as possible in order to achieve greater profits by selling more commodities. And this challenge of capital, including the industries we mentioned above. This is the factor of the capitalist crisis that shows itself in the fall in the rate of profit. The crisis begins in the production process, while the narrow and narrow vision of bourgeois critics of capital seeks it in the fall in the price of goods, their lack of consumption, and such effects. The price of goods may fall, but it is not a sign of a crisis in production. The continuous fall in the price of oil is not only due to its excess production, but also the growth of labor productivity in this area of capital, which in terms of the dimensions of capital, the progress in production techniques is not comparable to other areas of capital advance, has provided conditions for its producers such that they can engage in mass production whenever they want and drive competitors out of the field. This is the main factor in the fall in the unit value of oil and, of course, the fall in its price. Fracking and other techniques for extracting oil require minimal labor, which ultimately determines the price of oil. Furthermore, new techniques that increase labor productivity reduce the value of old fixed assets, and thus the value of capital goods that are transferred to the manufactured goods through their depreciation as a result of their use in production. This is the basis and reason for the dismissal of 5 to 6 million workers in China’s mining industries. Capital has no choice but to do this because it is part of its existence and if it stops moving, its competitors will skin it alive, and this is why the congress of the so-called Communist Party of China, the country’s largest capitalist, decided last year that China’s mining industries must be modernized and equipped with advanced and connected techniques. Therefore, the Chinese working class movement is only taking its first and primary steps in its rise, and there is a long and winding road ahead.
Labor Movements in Other Parts of the World
The French labor protests were sparked by workers’ opposition to a reform of French labor law at the beginning of the year. These protests have been accompanied by strikes in more sensitive economic centers of the country, such as refineries, railways, waste incineration plants, and energy production plants. French refinery workers have been on strike since Friday, May 20 2016, in protest against the government’s labor law reform bill. The strike led to long lines in front of gas stations. Strikers blocked roads leading to the refineries with rocks and burning tires. Six of France’s eight refineries were closed or partially closed due to the participation of their workers in the strike. The General Confederation of Labor, one of France’s major labor unions, announced that the strikes would continue until the bill is rejected by parliament. Tens of thousands of people took part in a pre-planned demonstration in Paris on Thursday, June 23, in further protests against the reforms to France’s labor code. The march was held under tight security and nearly 100 people were reportedly arrested. Labor unions and workers under their umbrella see the reforms as benefiting companies and employers and harming workers. Nuclear power plant workers announce massive strike As strikes continue in France to protest the labor code reforms, the country’s largest labor union, the CGT, announced that 19 nuclear power plants would go on a nationwide strike on Thursday, May 26, 2016.
About 75 percent of France’s electricity comes from nuclear power plants. Workers at the Nogent-sur-Seine plant near Paris began a 24-hour strike on Wednesday night. Jean-Claude, a member of the TGT, says: “There is no point in protesting on the streets anymore. They are not listening to us. We are going to use heavier instruments to make our protest heard. We will resist a little longer and make the government understand what resistance is.” Despite the plans of the leaders of the French trade unions to achieve a record number of participants in the history of strikes in this country, despite the presence of hundreds of thousands of people in the street protests and the disruption of the wheel of capital’s profit, despite all the militant calls of the union leaders, where they should be supporting class power, they have given everything to the capital state with both hands. Let us pay attention to this statement of the union leader to understand the depth and depth of their illusion of the capital state. Philippe Martinez, Secretary General of the SGT union, says: “We have been convinced for the past four months that it is not we who are in a weak position. I repeat once again that we have the support of the majority at all levels and now it is up to the government to accept its responsibility. We have said many times to listen to the people and now the government and the French president have the opportunity to do this.” The duty of the capital state, according to Pierre Hyptar of the Union, is to support the demands of the workers. This is also the pain of the mass of workers in France and Europe who imagine the capital state as an organ between the working class and the capitalist class and, despite the power of millions in the factory and on the street, are captive to the illusion of being an intermediary organ of the ruling class. This nonsense coming from the leaders of the union and representing the French working class are not just one or two. A member of the labor union says: “We hope that other comrades will join us in this strike. We are not gathered here to create chaos, but we are angry wage earners and citizens disillusioned with this government. Now it is the government’s duty to make the right decisions.” This one officially declares that he is not a fan of class struggle and that he has come primarily for compromise. A hundred or so years of domination by the octopus of social reformism and the sterile trade union movement over the French working class, which was once the standard-bearer of the class struggle of the powerful European working class and, in this way, raised slogans relying on its independent class power, has now turned into a class that has been aborted and, before making any move, thinks of retreating and surrendering itself to the capitalist state. It is clear that the end of such a sterile movement was known from the beginning, and the French Senate, the organ of the ruling class, approved the labor reform laws. I say sterile movement, which may lead some to judge how all these strikes, masses of protesting workers, and months of class unrest can be considered sterile. For the simple reason that the whole issue revolves around the labor law of capital! Yes, the workers of France have been accepting the spurs of labor law for more than a century, and under its control, without any objection, they are exploited according to the labor law of capital. When, at the behest of the union leaders, they are set in motion when the sacred laws of capital’s labor are to undergo some changes, then they come out not to change the very law of the purchase and sale of wage labor, nor the very law of the production of surplus value and the easy accumulation of capital, nor the barbarity of labor, nor the alienation of the product it creates, nor the domination of this product over all of humanity, but only against some changes in it and, in fact, the affirmation of their own slavery and the fact that slavery is approved to the extent it currently exists. Just for a moment, imagine that time has turned back and we are in 1870. The working-class force with one tenth of its current capacity comes to the fore to defend the labor law in operation of capital!! Wouldn’t this be the greatest tragedy in the history of the European working class? So we are now walking on this path, on the path of our absolute submission to the ruling class, even though the mass of our masses exceeds the millions.!! How long, how many more hundred years will we have to be submissive and docile within the framework of the labor law of capital, when are we going to rise up against capital and fight against the wage law, the state of capital and everything that maintains these social relations, and throw off the shackles of the union and everything that limits our struggle to certain boundaries. When we organize our fighting power in workers’ councils that have no other goal than the destruction of capital and the abolition of wages. Then the Council will never step into the arena to “make the capital state make the right decisions” or to give the French government the opportunity to do the right things. Rather, as an organ of working class power consisting of individual workers, it will make its own decisions and will not delegate any opportunity or power to the ruling class. The situation was almost the same for Indian workers when in early September, 180 million people took to the streets of Indian cities to remind the government of capital to observe labor laws and defend domestic Indian capital against foreign capital!! Since 2012, over one hundred million Indian workers, captive to the illusions of the union and under its leadership, have been coming out in mid-September to renew their pact with the labor laws of capital.
In England, teachers’ short-term pay unrest, as well as protests against school budget cuts and the negative impact of budget cuts on education, occurred in the middle of the year. Earlier, strikes by English workers and doctors against the government’s new plan for their employment contracts, which included the elimination of overtime pay for unusual working hours such as holidays, had taken place across the country. Similarly, in Italy, education workers went on strike and demonstrated against the reduction of real wages and the postponement of employment contracts, which was supported by a support strike by public transport workers in Rome. In this way, European workers took action against the invasion of their living standards by capitalist governments and the withdrawal of those minimum class privileges of workers. All these strikes and protests, as in the case of France, were carried out within the framework of the law of capital and its preservation.
Nowhere and in no case was the initiative taken by the workers of this continent to push back the capitalists and their government, gain economic and political privileges and go beyond the law. In Brazil, in connection with the Olympic Games, strikes and protests of the working masses took place in connection with the encroachment of the capitalist government on their minimum subsistence level, which was a special feature of Latin America, namely the attack on government organs and organizations, which led to street clashes. Hatred for the power apparatus of capital and capitalists and less illusion in its demagoguery are the prominent characteristics of this continent compared to the working masses of Europe. In Asia, in addition to China, which was discussed separately here, scattered and incoherent strikes and protests took place in India and Bangladesh, which never went beyond the framework of the law of capital and the control of the unions. In Indonesia, workers held widespread demonstrations against low wages and high prices of the goods they needed, as well as dismissals and unemployment.
The trend that we witnessed in 2016 all over the world, like in previous years, including strikes and street protests, was not directed towards appealing to the anti-capitalist power of the workers, but on the contrary, it was confined within the framework of the law of capital and a desperate, subdued appeal due to powerlessness to the pillars of the capital state. It is true that part of this desperation and confusion is related to the widespread traps, the capitalist-oriented solution-seeking of the trade unions, and the efforts of all the various reformist parties and groups to imprison our movement, but an important part also comes back to us workers ourselves, to our lack of confidence in the power and capacity of class anti-capitalism. The only way out of this cycle is the continuation of the futile effort to create an independent anti-capitalist and anti-wage labor council organization of us workers and to appeal to our own strength. Relying on this force, we must take the initiative not only in strikes, where our great power lies, but also in small and large protests. We must end the process of defending past gains and begin the assault on capital to gain new privileges.
Figure 3
Report on the Chinese Labor Movement in 2019
Labor strikes and protests in China continue day after day and year after year and are no longer a new phenomenon. What drove the wave of labor strikes and protests not so long ago was low wages and efforts to increase them, an escape from poverty and misery, and their movement, like their counterparts in Iran and other parts of the world, was a cry of protest against the status quo. In recent years, these conditions have changed, and the struggle to recover wages has become the most important motivation for the labor movement. The year 2015 marked the peak of the history of the labor movement in China with 2,775 strikes and protests. The number of strikes was almost double the number of protests, but the recovery of arrears of wages comprised 75 percent of labor movements. This trend continued in the following years, and in 2019 it comprised about 85 percent of the total labor movement. At the same time, the number of strikes is decreasing from the total labor movement! 2011 saw 185 strikes and protests across China, and this growth continued in 2014. However, a major shift in strikes this year has continued, with more and more workers in small factories and workshops (with a maximum of 100 workers) taking part in strikes and protests, and fewer and fewer large factories with more than 1,000 workers and fewer and fewer medium-sized factories with between 100 and 1,000 workers in the labor movement. The number of labor movements has been declining since the peak of 2015, but this decline is not because their strikes and protests are effective.
Police intervention, beatings, suppression, arrests and detention of workers continue without having a significant impact on the continuation of the struggle. One of the most important features of the Chinese labor movement is the appeal of striking workers to the masses of workers in the cities with similar demands, seeking help and cooperation from them, blocking roads and stopping the circulation of capital, and clashes with the police. Another feature of the Chinese labor movement is spontaneity, self-reliance, and hatred of the official organization of the national state union. This organization, which is an inseparable part of the Chinese capitalist bureaucracy, is rightly considered by all workers to be an organ of the owners of capital and those in power. Despite the efforts of the international labor organizations of capital, the elites of the Chinese union based in Hong Kong to confine the independent labor movement in the octopus-like, rotten, and reformist union circle of the workers do not pay any attention to the union and the union struggle and continue the spontaneous movement. One of the obvious reasons for the increase in the tactic of delaying wages is the months of non-payment by capitalists in China, like the capitalists in Iran, which leads to workers’ protests and strikes. On the other hand, there is no truly anti-capitalist and organized soviet movement that embodies the class power of workers against the organized power of capitalists and their government. They do not feel any threat from the workers. In their parliamentary seats, the seats of power and capital planning comfortably recline and throw the force of police repression at the lives of workers and their families, hoping that workers will eventually get tired of protesting and striking and will not tolerate further repression and will return to work and producing profits. Which has unfortunately happened and is one of the reasons for the decline in labor movements. Another reason is that capitalism around the world has been reeling from the pain of the crisis for a long time, the downward trend in the rate of profit is accelerating. The era when the capitalist class and capitalist governments of European and American countries, in the face of the wave of workers’ struggle that still had a glimmer of radicalism, agreed to grant certain privileges to the workers of their countries has passed.
| Year | Reasons and causes of strikes (percentage of protests) | Type of worker action (as a percentage of total) | Total movements | ||
| Arrears of wages | Low wage level | Strike and production stoppage | Demonstration | ||
| 2011 | 54 | 21 | 75 | 7 | 185 |
| 2012 | 37 | 28 | 72 | 17 | 370 |
| 2013 | 24 | 19 | 90 | 7 | 735 |
| 2014 | 52 | 12 | 69 | 31 | 1358 |
| 2015 | 75 | 5 | 65 | 31 | 2775 |
| 2016 | 74 | 6.8 | 53 | 37 | 2670 |
| 2017 | 80 | 2 | 27 | 70 | 1258 |
| 2018 | 80 | 5 | 32 | 60 | 1706 |
| 2019 | 85 | 3 | 35 | 58 | 1386 |
Table 2
These conditions have changed, crises have jeopardized the survival of capitalism and capitalism is in the grip of crisis, and European capitalism has long been working to reclaim these minimums, and this process has accelerated since the 2008 crisis. As can be seen, in France, Italy, and other European regions, even months of strikes and protests against the deplorable conditions, poverty, and the increase in the retirement age have not borne fruit. This is while capital in these regions still benefits from the excess profits of capital and, compared to some competitors, partners, and governments such as China, Iran, and India, they are reaping a greater share of the fruits of the exploitation of the world’s workers. Therefore, the capitalists of Iran, China, and India are increasingly and more brazenly refusing to pay the low wages of workers and are adding it directly to their galactic profits and entering the cycle of capital. A look at the miserable condition of Indian workers reveals not only the state of capital in this country, but also the even more miserable condition of the workers. Bank workers in India, who are under the cover of degenerate unions and the domination of syndicalism, have been organizing multi-day strikes in November 2017 for low, humble and compromising demands of a small increase in wages every now and then, at the behest of the union leaders, without any results. This year, these workers also held a nationwide strike on January 31 and February 1, respecting the profession and observing all the laws of the bourgeoisie, very calmly and without the slightest result!! We, the humble workers, have not followed the trade unions. Although we have been striking and protesting in Iran and China ourselves, relying on our own spontaneous movement, we have not succeeded in creating an independent anti-capitalist labor force that can confront the ruling class and push them back. We are much more radical in our fight against capital, and even if we fail, this is not the result of bargaining and bargaining between unions and parties to share power. But we must go beyond this and become a class power that even our failures become a source of experience and a storehouse for future victories!
The changing trend of transport workers’ protests in China is a major challenge for the trade union
Mass strikes and protests by transport workers have long been a feature of everyday life in Chinese cities, but the past five years have seen a significant substantive change in the nature of these protests, driven primarily by the rapid growth of app-based transport services. The decline of traditional services such as taxis
The China Labor Bulletin Strike Map recorded nearly 1,400 transport workers’ protests in the five years between 2014 and 2019, accounting for about 15 percent of the total – see the map below. From this dataset, one can clearly see the changes in the industries involved, the geographical location and the number of participants in each protest.
A correct understanding of these trends and the underlying issues in transport strikes is crucial not only for the Chinese government but also for the official labour union, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), which claims to have now recruited and is now recruiting. Better protection for transport workers is a top priority. Taxi drivers have been at the center of transport workers’ protests in China for years, with major strikes involving thousands of drivers lasting several days. Perhaps the most famous strike occurred in the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing in 2008, when then-mayorial Party secretary Bo Bizila personally met with taxi drivers’ representatives to try to end a dispute that had paralyzed the city. In the Chongqing strike, as in almost every other dispute, drivers’ grievances centered on the widely used contract system, under which drivers paid a substantial deposit and a monthly lease fee for the use of a vehicle. Taxi companies were allowed to arbitrarily raise the monthly fee, while the driver had to pay for fuel, maintenance, and repairs. When fares were increased or fees were high, drivers with no other channel to voice their grievances took to the streets to protest. Taxi drivers have also long complained about competition from unlicensed “black” cabs, but the complaints became even louder with the entry of ride-hailing apps into the market in the mid-2010s. Striking taxi drivers regularly go on “fishing trips” to catch and threaten unlicensed drivers. However, as ride-hailing apps have become more disciplined and begun to dominate the market, taxi driver strikes have declined from a peak of around 70 percent in 2015 to 25 percent of the total this year.
Report on the Chinese Labor Movement in 2020
In general, it can be said that the decline in the growth of capital accumulation in China, which began its downward trend in 2016 and its relative growth decreased to an extent that was unprecedented in the past two decades, continued in the following years, and in 2020, the new factor of the Corona pandemic caused a relatively severe fall, the direct result of which was new arrangements, the emergence and growth of new areas of production and capital advance, and inevitably, widespread unemployment and labor displacement on a scale that the history of Chinese capitalism had never experienced. Reducing wages, increasing work intensity, increasing daily working hours, and rapid changes and movement of labor from one area to another of capital have been the only ways for capital to reduce the downward trend of the profit rate. All of these factors worked against workers and their movement against capital and the capitalist state. Unemployment caused a sharp decline in protests and strikes. In addition, severe restrictions on gatherings also became a new obstacle to the formation of protests, closing roads and communication routes for the circulation of goods and capital, which was one of the prominent and advanced characteristics of Chinese workers in previous years. Digital protests and the mediatization of protests by workers is a new form that not only does not bring any results for the workers, but the capital state and even its police and repression institutions do not give it any importance and do not give it a penny. Individual capitalists and owners of capital see it as even less important.
Last year, labor and production workers rarely protested with more than 1,000 workers. During the year, only 10 protests with more than 1,000 taxi drivers protested wage cuts. However, a significant portion of the struggles (45 percent) were in the construction-road, building repair and hospital facilities sectors, which in previous years also accounted for a significant portion of the total protests. The main protests and strikes focused on low wages, harsh and intense working conditions, and unpaid wages. Protests by workers in other capital-intensive industries decreased compared to 2019 and previous years, reaching 11 percent. Most of these industries were electronics factories, such as the large Taiwanese factory in Shanghai (Pegatron), where thousands of workers went on strike to protest the relocation of the factory. The food and food production sector, one of the sectors that had an astronomical growth in capital advance and whose workers were activists of the Chinese labor movement in previous years, suffered a sharp decline in their protests in 2020, as they launched about 60 strikes and protests against capitalists in 2018, this number decreased to 45 in 2019, and was limited to 3 protests in 2020. The harsher and more intense working conditions, the reduction of wages under the pressure of the vast masses of unemployed behind the doors of factories and restaurants, the astronomical increase in ready-made food and food delivery services (500 thousand workers in this sector of capital became unemployed at the beginning of the year) caused this sharp decline in protests. Many of these workers, especially in food and food delivery services, turned to digital and media protests, but after a while they realized its ineffectiveness and the lack of any collective protest, and it was gradually forgotten and faded into obscurity. Workers in this capital sector, along with healthcare workers, were forced to accept 12-hour days, six days a week, and this has gradually spread to other sectors such as services and some manufacturing industries dealing with medical goods. The results of the increased work intensity have been an astronomical increase in work accidents, deaths, and injuries and physical damage to workers.
Migrant workers in China (agricultural workers, poor peasants who have a maximum of half a hectare of land to cultivate and earn a living for part of the year and who are forced to temporarily migrate to cities to work in order to feed themselves and their families) suffered the most in 2020, whether in terms of reduced wages (these workers normally have the lowest wages and the most minimal insurance coverage), unemployment, increased work intensity and daily working hours, or severe restrictions on the possibility of protest. This huge mass of workers constitutes one-third of the Chinese workforce (294 million workers) and, as the safety valve of Chinese capitalism, they are always placed on their shoulders, whether in times of capital growth or in times of recession and crisis, a huge burden of what the capitalist state decides and implements at any given time. Last year, according to official statistics from the Chinese government (National Bureau of Statistics, NBS), 9 million of these workers lost their jobs.
The actual number of these workers and their associates who became unemployed is much higher, as the Chinese government also uses one hour of work per week per year as the basis for having a job, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO). Of the migrant workers who found work to support themselves and their families and saw their low wages fall, about 500,000 workers were forced to accept more temporary work in restaurants, food delivery services and food factories in the first half of the year. Intense competition among migrant workers, the threat of unemployment and job loss, leads to accepting capitalist conditions and lower wages. The boundless global demand for goods such as face masks, hospital equipment and hygiene products has led to a new arrangement in Chinese capitalism that has suddenly increased the demand for labor in these areas of capital advance, but this new arrangement has not led to an increase in wages. Major car manufacturers and their subsidiaries quickly converted their production processes to producing ventilators, masks, hand washing and cleaning systems, virus testing machines and the like. Workers in the same institutions have in many cases preferred working up to 12 hours a day without pay increases to unemployment. This has often been accompanied by silence of workers. But Chinese workers, with a history of protests and strikes for many years, do not seem to be able to tolerate these conditions. Now, evidence of a new wave of protests against capitalism and its government has emerged. A look at the protests from the first months of 2020 to the end is proof of this. The number of protests in January was 56, February 9, March 52, April 33, May 59, June 90, July 94, August 68, September 86, October 61, November 88 and December 101, and currently in January 2021, the number is 594.
| Year | Reasons and causes of strikes (as a percentage of protests) | Type of worker action (as a percentage of total) | Total movements | ||
| Arrears of wages | Low wage level | Strike | Demonstration | ||
| 2014 | 52 | 12 | 69 | 31 | 1358 |
| 2015 | 75 | 5 | 65 | 31 | 2775 |
| 2016 | 74 | 6.8 | 53 | 37 | 2670 |
| 2017 | 80 | 2 | 27 | 70 | 1258 |
| 2018 | 80 | 5 | 32 | 60 | 1706 |
| 2019 | 85 | 3 | 35 | 58 | 1386 |
| 2020 | 90 | 10 | 11 | 89 | 800 |
Table 3
In the context of drawing conclusions from the workers’ struggles in general, whether they are successful or not, it should not be limited to increasing wages, reducing daily working hours, having legal guarantees to continue working, and such everyday labor issues, but rather its progress and taking root among the workers, creating confidence in their own strength, creating links between workers in different areas of capital, learning from their own experiences in the process of increasing class awareness of the interests of the class, and how this awareness can be incorporated into anti-capitalist organizing on the basis of the abolition of wage labor. Workers can become captives of capitalist illusions and limit their fate in submission to the relationship of buying and selling labor. They can sell their future and that of their children to the bourgeoisie for a meager wage, while accumulating ever-increasing mountains of capital, and forever submit to wage slavery relations, or, as the radicals and anti-capitalists of the nineteenth century and before, rebel against wage relations and even reach the stage of its overthrow and destruction in the Paris Commune. The level of growth of the labor movement does not result from the low level of workers’ demands. The fact that Iranian workers and a significant part of Chinese workers are fighting for arrears of wages does not indicate the backwardness of their struggle. Every year, we witness some labor strikes in Europe and America, whose motivation is to increase wages and better working conditions, but none of them is based on the spontaneous struggle of the workers, but all of them are planned, targeted, and pursued and pursued by the leadership of degenerate capitalist unions and reformist parties. These goals are completely based on the survival of capitalist relations, so that all these efforts ultimately lead to the strengthening of wage labor relations and the workers become more and more accustomed to their fate in these relations. The intellectual naivety of the European worker, who, in the circle of capitalist illusions, has tied his fate to the survival of capital and has absolute trust in the bourgeois organizations of unions and its colorful parties that supposedly defend his class interests, has reached a point where if these capitals do not extract huge profits from the workers, if even the minimum that the capitalists have considered as their wages, insurance premiums and pensions does not create a clear perspective towards reducing the decline in the rate of profit before the capitalists’ eyes and does not practically guarantee the prevention of this decline, capital will compensate for this not only by increasing the intensity of work, lengthening the working day, but also, as we have witnessed many times in capitalist crises, by increasing the working age (increasing the retirement age), making working days more fluid, and even reducing the level of wages.
According to 2011 statistics, the number of working peasants in cities and coastal areas, consisting of 253 million people, or 50.7 percent of the total rural population, have given up agricultural work. However, these working peasants own their own housing and rural land.
Migrant workers in China (agricultural workers, poor peasants who have a maximum of half a hectare of land to cultivate and earn a living for part of the year and who are forced to temporarily migrate to cities to work in order to feed themselves and their families) suffered the most in 2020, whether in terms of reduced wages (these workers normally have the lowest wages and the most minimal insurance coverage), unemployment, increased work intensity and daily working hours, or severe restrictions on the possibility of protest. This huge mass of workers constitutes one-third of the Chinese workforce (290 million workers in 2020) and, as the safety valve of Chinese capitalism, they are always placed on their shoulders, whether in times of capital growth or in times of recession and crisis, a huge burden of what the capitalist state decides and implements at any given time. Last year, according to official statistics from the Chinese government (National Bureau of Statistics, NBS), 9 million of these workers lost their jobs. The actual number of these workers and their associates who became unemployed is much higher, as the Chinese government also uses one hour of work per week per year as the basis for having a job, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO). Of the migrant workers who found work to support themselves and their families and saw their low wages fall, about 500,000 were forced to change to more temporary jobs in restaurants, food delivery services, and food manufacturing factories in the first half of the year. Intense competition among migrant workers, the threat of unemployment and job loss led to acceptance of capitalist conditions and lower wages. The boundless global demand for goods such as face masks, hospital equipment, and hygiene products led to a new arrangement in Chinese capitalism that suddenly increased the demand for labor in these areas of capital advance, but this new arrangement did not lead to an increase in wages. Major car manufacturers and their subsidiaries quickly converted their production processes to producing respirators, masks, hand washing and cleaning systems, virus testing machines and the like. Workers in the same institutions have in many cases preferred working up to 12 hours a day without pay increases to unemployment. This has often been accompanied by workers’ silence. But Chinese workers, with a history of protests and strikes for many years, do not seem to be able to tolerate these conditions. Now, evidence of a new wave of protests against capitalism and its government has emerged.
| Year | Reasons and causes of strikes (as a percentage of protests) | Type of worker action (as a percentage of total) | Total movements | ||
| Arrears of wages | Low wage level | Strike | Demonstration | ||
| 2014 | 52 | 12 | 69 | 31 | 1358 |
| 2015 | 75 | 5 | 65 | 31 | 2775 |
| 2016 | 74 | 6.8 | 53 | 37 | 2670 |
| 2017 | 80 | 2 | 27 | 70 | 1258 |
| 2018 | 80 | 5 | 32 | 60 | 1706 |
| 2019 | 85 | 3 | 35 | 58 | 1386 |
| 2020 | 90 | 10 | 11 | 89 | 800 |
| 2021 | 68 | 25 | 18 | 82 | 1094 |
| 2022 | 89 | 10 | 23 | 76 | 990 |
| 2023 | 84 | 16 | 15 | 84 | 1794 |
| 2024 | 80 | 20 | 15 | 85 | 1509 |
A total of 1,509 protest were recorded in CLB’s Strike Map in 2024, a small decrease from 2023 (1,794 incidents) but still higher than the pandemic years (2019 to 2022). Worker unrest has remained at high pre-pandemic levels. 2023 was an exceptional year, as worker unrest came roaring back on the tail end of the pandemic.
Among industries, the construction industry continued to see the most protests (733 incidents; 48.6 percent). While the total number of cases fell, those in the manufacturing industry (452 incidents; 30 percent) saw a rise from 2023. They were followed by the services industry (148 incidents; 9.81 percent), transport and logistics (64 incidents; 4.24 percent), heavy industry (21 incidents; 1.39 percent), education (15 incidents; 0.99 percent) and mining (12 incidents; 0.80 percent).
Protests predominantly occurred in coastal provinces, but significant numbers of cases were also seen in inland ones. Guangdong continued to see the most labour rights-related protests (346 incidents), while Shandong (106 incidents) and Zhejiang (101 incidents) recorded relatively high incidents. Notably, inland provinces such as Henan (80 incidents), Hebei (69) and Shaanxi (59) also saw many cases of labour rights abuses.
In 2024, CLB recorded just four labour strikes involving over 1,000 workers, with more than 95% of reported incidents involving fewer than 100 participants. This trend has remained consistent since 2017 (see CLB analysis) . Probably the biggest strike of the year involved thousands of state-owned forest farm workers in Heilongjiang protesting for fairer working conditions last winter In 2024, China’s economy was challenged by domestic as well as international developments. Domestically, interest and confidence in housing slumped .The expansion of e-commerce and ride-hailing platforms challenged the operations of existing companies. Changes in consumer behaviours required the services industries to adapt. Internationally, when multinational companies decided to cut costs, factories in China were obliged to reduce or halt production. Given the trend of diversifying production away from China, the manufacturing industries have been getting affected gradually.
Workers in the construction industry continued to see their wages remain unpaid in 2024, with residential projects being the main targets of protests. Although the Strike Map recorded fewer incidents in the construction industry in 2024 (733 incidents) than in 2023 (945 incidents), the sector continued to have the highest proportion of protests among industries. Across the country, Guangdong (134 incidents), Shandong (78) and Henan (46) – provinces that have seen significant investments in real estate and infrastructure in recent years – recorded the highest numbers of protests, a proportion similar to that in 2023 with Shanxi dropping out of the top 3. Among the types of projects targeted that CLB could identify, 50 percent were related to residential projects, around 30 percent in infrastructure projects followed by 20 percent in commercial projects.
The Strike Map recorded a large number of protests against unpaid wages related to Vanke.
Unlike in the property market, investments in infrastructure increased by 4.4 percent nationwide in 2024. Investments in air transportation recorded a 20.7 percent increase and railway transportation 13.5 percent rise. However, investments in road transportation fell by 1.1 percent. Meanwhile, experts from a domestic think tank have reminded that local governments’ spending on infrastructure might turn into inefficient investment and worsen the existing debt. Protests against unpaid wage arrears and against abuse of other labour rights has become the last resort for workers, and in some cases, workers find themselves in more straitened situations as they could get arrested and beaten up. In an incident in Huizhou where construction workers went to a shopping mall to demand unpaid wages, around 20 security guards sought to prevent them from approaching the entrance.
CLB’s Strike Map gathered information about 452 protests in the manufacturing industry in 2024 – an increase from the previous year (438 cases) – at a time when international companies were eager to diversify their investments despite flat domestic demand. The incidents occurred mainly in the be st-performing manufacturing provinces, with Guangdong witnessing a total of 166 incidents, followed by Zhejiang (63) and Jiangsu (39). While boasting of possessing the world’s bigge st manufacturing economy, China’s manufacturing industry experienced another frustrating year in 2024.
Among the incidents in the manufacturing sector that CLB was able to gather information about, elect ronics accounted for 109 incidents followed by apparel (90), shoes (22), a utomotive (17) and ph otovoltaic (9). As in 2023, the electronics and apparel sectors continued to experience the most protests in 2024. Given the challenges posed by weakening international and domestic demand, some capitalists and factory owners have stopped paying workers’ salaries, cutting profits, and some have even closed down.
Hassan Abbasi