Fresh worker unrest has broken out, this time in the affluent Yangtze River Delta, with hundreds of striking workers and police clashing outside a rubber factory near Shanghai on Monday morning.
Workers said dozens were injured or detained and they continued their sit-in yesterday.
Meanwhile, a strike at a Honda-affiliated plant in the Pearl River Delta city of Foshan looks set to continue for a third day. The strike, involving more than 250 of the 300 workers at the Foshan Fengfu Autoparts plant, attracted a heavy police presence.
The factory makes exhaust systems for Guangqi Honda Automobile. A spokesman for Honda Motor (China) said yesterday that all assembly lines at its plants in Huangpu and Zengcheng , which employ about 6,000 workers, would halt production today due to a lack of parts.
The recent incidents of labour unrest come against a broader backdrop of rising labour costs and growing worker agitation in the mainland's main manufacturing hubs. Electronics giant Foxconn has been forced to raise salaries after a rash of suicides in Shenzhen, and workers at a Honda Autoparts Manufacturing plant in Foshan won a pay rise on Friday after a two-week strike.
Geoffrey Crothall, a spokesman for the Hong Kong-based group China Labour Bulletin, said the clashes appeared to be part of a pattern.