Feng Xianfa is a 30 year-old father of two who moved to Shengze, China's "Silk Capital," in search of work in the booming textile industry. When the economy took a severe downturn early this year and the factories scaled-back production, unskilled migrant workers like Feng and his wife Hu Jinmei were the first to be discarded.

 

Shenzhen has long been at the forefront of social and economic change in China, and this is certainly the case in the field of labour rights. Labour rights groups and citizen agents (gongmin dailiren) are particularly active in the city, and both the municipal government and official trade union seem willing to engage constructively with these groups and respond positively to the demands of labour. In this issue of the CLB Magazine we list a few examples from our website of recent labour rights developments in Shenzhen.

 

Low wages and the non-payment of wages are probably the two most important causes of labour disputes in China today. To help our readers better understand this important issue, CLB has produced a new background article on Wages in China, which shows that while average wage levels have steadily increased, so has the gap between wages in different employment sectors and regions.