Diary of a Chinese worker activist. Women workers fight for justice in Guangzhou

15 October, 2013 Last month, 19 striking workers at a jewellery factory in the Guangzhou suburb of Panyu were sacked without any compensation. Three of the workers were pregnant and two were nursing mothers. The workers are now engaged in a high profile campaign to get their jobs back.
Huang Xiaojuan is one of the sacked workers and a key figure in the long-running dispute at the Gaoya Jewellery Factory. In her personal account below, Huang describes the background to the dispute and details the actions taken by the workers in their collective quest for welfare benefits, better pay and improved working conditions at the factory.
She also highlights the role of a local labour rights group, the Panyu Workers’ Service Centre, during the workers’ year-long struggle. The jewellery workers core grievances were related to the company’s non-payment of social insurance contributions, an issue the Panyu Centre already had considerable experience and success with in 2012, helping other jewellery workers in the neighbourhood get their overdue payments.
Huang’s diary illustrates the workers’ awareness of their rights and their determination to seek a negotiated settlement with the company over a wide-range of grievances.  However, it also reveals the dangers that worker representatives, such as Huang, face if the boss decides to retaliate against them once they have achieved some measure of success in negotiations.

Gaoya workers take their protest to the Guangzhou Federation of Trade Unions