This morning, the media, at home and abroad, reported on the negotiation between Honda management and the workers. The Cajing website quoted Professor Chang Kai from the School of Labor and Human Resources of the Chinese People's University, who was appointed by the workers’ delegates as their legal advisor, as saying that “the negotiation has been concluded successfully! The management has agreed to raise the workers’ wages by 35%, which is an increase of approximately 500 yuan. Both parties have signed an agreement.”
On June 3, the workers’ representatives contacted Professor Chang Kai, and on June 4, he formally agreed to act as their legal advisor. In the afternoon he rushed to Nanhai to join the negotiation. At 3pm, the democratically elected workers delegation started talks with the management, which did not end until 10 pm.
Before the negotiation started, the management proposed a pay rise of 366 yuan for formal workers, although the workers had demanded 800. The agreement, which has now been reached, is for an average monthly pay rise of 500 yuan, 137 yuan of which will be in the form of subsidies and bonuses. A regular front-line worker whose wages were 1544 yuan before, will have their wages increased to 2044 yuan after the pay rise - a raise of 32.4%. The intern employees, who account for 80 percent of all employees, had already agreed earlier to a pay rise, in stages, of 634 yuan from the current rate of 900 - a raise of more than 70%.
The meeting focused mostly on the discussion of wages. The issue of seniority subsidies proposed by the workers delegation was not discussed in full, and the workers delegation acknowledged that it can be brought up again later after the reorganization of the workplace trade union. The workplace union chairperson also participated in the meeting. Some of the workers delegation said that the reorganization of the union is their main concern, and although it is a complicated matter, they will continue to press for this on the basis of existing legal framework.
