the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jun 26, 2023
Workers’ protests in China are sometimes small-scale, but more of them have happened so far in 2023 than in 2022. This is according to the China Labor Bulletin (CLB), a labor advocacy group based out of Hong Kong. They report at least 130 factory strikes, more than triple the number in the whole of 2022.
Information is difficult to obtain, so this is only one small window into what may be happening. With the worsening of political relations between the U.S. and China, new orders in factories have gone down. Some factory owners have been resorting to not paying workers. Most of these strikes have been over money owed to workers and not paid.
Also, since 2008, "more factories hired temp workers or agency workers—they found a lot of different ways to evade responsibility," according to a researcher at CLB.
These small protests have sometimes resulted in small wins. Organizers are punished, but the protests continue.
So far, these small fights have not been connected to any broader workers’ movement, but they are an encouraging sign for the working class.