The Chinese working class emerges

[Joanne98]

The emergence of struggles by workers in China over the past few weeks is of enormous significance for the working class internationally. Against those who wrote off the proletariat as a revolutionary social force and declared the class struggle to be old hat, the first outbursts of the working class in China, following on from the strikes in Greece, are sending tremors through global ruling elites.


The international financial press has followed with considerable concern the strike by workers in Honda’s transmission plant in South China, which paralysed the corporation’s production for almost two weeks. The mainly young workers defied government intimidation, the state-run trade unions and management, and only returned to work this week after being granted a significant wage rise.


Major corporations such as Honda now depend heavily on the super-profits extracted from cheap, regimented labour in China. The reliance of international capital on China has been magnified by the global financial crisis that erupted in 2007-08. Any upsurge of the multi-millioned working class in China not only directly threatens corporate profits, but would inevitably reverberate throughout the world economy and financial system.


The vast scale of production in China was underscored by the media spotlight on the wave of suicides at the Foxconn plant, which manufactures electronic goods for major global corporations such as Dell and Apple. The plant, where 400,000 people work, constitutes a city in itself—huge, alienating and run like a military camp. One comment on a Chinese online forum declared: “When I look at Foxconn, I feel reminded of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times. They show a world in which human beings are being degraded to gearwheels in a huge machine.”


http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/jun2010/pers-j05.shtml

This is really a big deal. If you could get the Chinese workers to revolt, it would raise wages of workers all over the world.

[Bobbieo]

1. While the American 'working class' diminishes!

[Donnachaidh]

2. bwahahahahah -- world trade is biting the elites in the ASS.

IRONY.

[DJ13]

3. These multinational corps are migratory, they will move if need be

The Chinese may think they can stop them, but the corporations would have no second thoughts about moving to another country if wages rise beyond peasant subsistence.

[SocialistLez]

4. Agreed. I'd love to see an international minimum wage. NT

[Hawkowl]

5. Yes, but....

Unlike here in the US, I think China would actually keep the plant and equipment.