Guangdong collective bargaining proposal seen as bellwether for China

In August, 49-year-old Meng Han and 11 other hospital security guards unfurled large banners and climbed atop the roof of a three-storey outpatient clinic in a Guangzhou hospital, pleading for the management to negotiate an equal pay package.

But the drastic protest against the First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine in the city's Baiyun district proved a failure. The security guards were arrested and convicted by the local district court of illegally gathering and disturbing the social order.

Meng and his fellow demonstrators were jailed for up to nine months. The 49-year-old was released last month and is currently unemployed.

Meng said he had no choice: he'd been hired by an agency to work as a contract guard in the hospital. Unlike other security guards, he was paid just 1,100 yuan [HK$1,400] a month when he started in 2010, about 1,200 yuan less than those hired directly by the hospital. The hospital contributed to his social insurance plan, but some 400 yuan less than other guards, he said. "It is unfair because we were doing the same work but paid differently." Meng said.

For years he petitioned hospital management for equal wages and benefits, but without success. Meng said he would have benefited from a proposed regulation by Guangdong's provincial government that would establish collective labour bargaining.

The proposed Regulations on Enterprise Collective Consultations and Collective Contracts, first introduced by a trade union, would give workers the right to demand meetings with employers to negotiate for better wages and benefits.