This week, Chinese authorities arrested three well-known labour activists in the southern city of Shenzhen and charged them with gathering a crowd to disturb public order. Labour activists Wu Guijun, Zhang Zhiru and He Yuancheng are currently being held in detention while another two, Jian Hui and Song Jiahui, were also detained this week but not formally charged. At this stage it is not clear to what event or events these charges are referring. Nevertheless these arrests can be seen as a pre-emptive strike by the Chinese government to warn workers because it fears that labour activism will start to grow again as a result of the slowing economy.
You may also like
At the end of last year, workers and other activists staged a series of demonstrations to protest against the government’s increasingly authoritarian […]
In a new development, Israel is trying to stop its reliance on Palestinian workers by importing large numbers of Chinese migrant workers. […]
Earlier this week, to mark the one year anniversary of the jailing of 147 of their fellow workers, the Maruti Suzuki workers […]
Dockers in the Sri Lankan port of Colombo ended industrial action this week after a pay deal was negotiated. The dockers, represented […]