Jasic Factory Struggle, Shenzhen China – Webinar by SACOM and Labor Notes, 2/21/2019
Synopsis of Webinar:
An effort to organize a union
at a factory in Shenzhen, China has turned into a larger
political issue. The Jasic Factory makes
large-scale welding equipment for the world market. It is domestically owned by a Chinese
businessman who also plays a low-level role in the local Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) as a member of the District People’s Congress. There are about 1,000 workers there, of average
skill levels, many with long-time service.
They went ahead, after permission from a few local officials of the All
China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), to organize a union in May 2018.
Since then 50 workers or
supporters have been fired or jailed, while students from ‘elite’ universities
have been detained, expelled from schools or jailed. The process has involved forced televised
confessions. The two local officials
from ACFTU who told the workers to go ahead and organize a union have also been
arrested.
Why the crackdown? According to Michael Ma of SACOM (Students
and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior) – an organization in Hong Kong which is supporting the Jasic struggle – it is
because of the fusion between these workers and students from top universities
across the country. Chinese students in Marxist study societies in various
universities have noticed that the treatment that workers receive from the
state and the CCP is what Marxists have always opposed. For instance, this involved students from the
Peking University Marxist Society, who study Marxism and also have gotten jobs
in factories to get closer to the Chinese working class. The CCP is threatened because another
interpretation of Marxism and socialism is being used by some highly-educated
youth against the capitalists inside China. This threatens the authority of CCP
bureaucratic rule and also local capitalist and overseas imperialist profits.
The immediate issue here is
having an independent union. I might add
that the concept of ‘independent trade unions’ and factory committees was part
of the transitional demands of the Soviet Left Opposition and later, the 1938 Transitional
Program of the 4th International.
This approach is not the same as the
bureaucratic ACFTU version of unionism, which is basically to be in charge of
labor discipline. That is also the role
unions played in the former USSR
or Eastern European workers’ states. As
class struggle continues in China,
the Transitional Program becomes ever more useful.
E.D. Friedman introduced Ma
by describing a change in China
since the rise of Xi Jinping in 2013.
Since then she says there has been increased repression directed against workers,
against left political opponents, researchers and journalists, against any left opposition to the CCP version
of ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics.’ Ma said the unique characteristic
of the Jasic struggle is that A.
it is local, not inspired by some NGO; B.
It involved wide support from other students and workers in Shenzhen; C. The support group was large
and could reach across the nation; D.
their ideology was strong; E.
the unity of students and workers was unique.
Ma said that there are
increased stresses in this region of China,
as some garment factories are moving to even lower-paid parts of Asia, while
other factories are moving into the interior of China away from the developed
coast. The reactionary and militarist ‘trade
war’ initiated by the U.S.
and Trump is also causing a slowdown in production.
As to what to do, a professor
from Cornell mentioned that their University stopped relations with Chinese university
officials because of this repression of students. This had an impact on the CCP, which had to
issue statements. The International
Confederation of Trade Unions and the International Labor Organization have not
done anything as yet. Only the
Metalworkers Union in Germany
have attempted to support the Jasic struggle so far. To a question, Ma contended that corporate
‘social auditing’ is fruitless, as workers are not allowed to be honest with
auditors and factories are prettified before audits.
Full story from SACOM: http://sacom.hk/
Full story from Labor
Notes: https://labornotes.org/jasic
Other reviews on China on the blog, below: “China on Strike,” “Two Sea
Changes in World Economy,” “Is the East Still Red?” “From Commune to
Capitalism,” “The End of the Revolution,” “The Rise of China,” “The Implosion of
Contemporary Capitalism,” “Maoism and the Chinese Revolution.” Use blog search box, upper left.
Red Frog
February 25, 2019
No comments:
Post a Comment