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Mimi Lau

A fresh strike has broken out at a Japanese-owned car parts factory in Guangzhou, stopping car production at two Honda factories, while an earlier dispute has halted production at a Toyota factory.
Hundreds of workers at a Huangpu district factory that supplies suspension parts to several car makers, including Honda and Toyota, walked off the job on Tuesday, demanding a pay rise and improved bonuses. 
Workers at NHK-UNI Spring (Guangzhou)  demanded that their monthly salaries be increased from 1,200 yuan to 1,700 yuan and that their end of year bonus be increased from 1,200 yuan to 6,800 yuan. Management agreed to the pay rise but not the bonus demand.
Strikes have spread through Japanese-owned car component factories in the Pearl River Delta and Tianjin  since hundreds of workers at a Honda parts factory in Foshan  won 500 yuan pay rises early this month after a strike that lasted for more than two weeks.
A Honda spokesman in Tokyo said the NHK-UNI Spring strike had halted production at Guangqi Honda's  two car plants in Huangpu and Zengcheng, Guangzhou. 
However, a mainland Honda spokesman said the strike had been settled and parts would be shipped out again from today.
'By tomorrow, everything will be back to normal,' he said.
Meanwhile, hundreds of workers at Denso (Guangzhou Nansha),  owned by a Toyota affiliate, refused to work for a third day yesterday, even though they returned to the factory, clocked in and donned uniforms.
The workers elected more than 20 representatives yesterday morning ahead of talks with management in the afternoon. 
Workers were encouraged to write down their demands and expectations on scraps of paper and hand them to their representatives before the discussion. 
Their demands included a pay rise of 800 yuan, the establishment of an independent union, air conditioning for their dormitory and a promise that there would be no sackings when the strike was over.
Negotiations began at 1pm but no agreement had been announced by last night. Workers said a few people returned to work last night.
According to a government notice handed to reporters outside the factory, only 200 workers took part in a sit-in protest on Monday.
But some demonstrators insisted that at least 600 workers, nearly half of the factory's workforce, were yesterday involved in the industrial action.
Associated Press reported that Toyota's main car plant in Guangzhou, GAC Toyota Motor,  which produces about 360,000 cars a year, was halted for a second day yesterday as a result of the Denso strike. 
Denso is a major supplier of fuel injection and other components for car makers including Toyota, Honda and Volkswagen. 
A 20-year-old worker from Hunan  said if the strike dragged on, it would affect other parts suppliers nearby and carmakers  across the country. 
'If this is going to drag on, it will have a radiating impact on carmakers even in northern China, such as Toyota in Tianjin and Hyundai in Beijing, as we are the first-level suppliers,' he said. 
'If  we stop working, other factories won't be able to get our stock to carry on with their production lines.' 
Guangzhou Honda general manager Zeng Qinghong, a National People's Congress deputy who helped mediate an end to a strike at the Honda Lock factory in Zhongshan  last week, was brought in by Denso management and promised workers a reply by tomorrow if they returned to work today.  
 The workers are still getting paid even though they are on strike, according to one senior manager who is also the chairman of the factory union. 
'No one wants to see this happen, we are all working in a positive direction and a rational manner to resolving the matter,' he said.
Pay demands
Workers at a plant in Guangzhou wanted a 6,800 yuan bonus 
This was rejected, but their pay will be increased from 1,200 yuan a month to: 1,700 yuan



More car parts workers walk off the job