Tuesday, April 22, 2008

Idea: Special Strike Zones

All-China Federation of Trade UnionsACFTU via WikipediaAs you might have noticed, a huge number of reforms are hitting China's labor markets. We have seen the Labor Contract Law came into place, on May 1 the same will happen to the Labor Arbitration Law. China's only trade union ACFTU organized Wal-Mart initially against its will and most recently the ACFTU started a campaign to introduce collective bargaining nationwide.
After so many changes in a relatively short time, you can wonder what will be next. From what I have heard, the debate is still inconclusive, but one idea seems very interesting: experiments with the right to strike. When that is going to be done, it will be restricted to some carefully picked areas. It is a very Chinese style to introduce reform in a limited way, so not the whole country gets turned over at the same moment.
My proposal: call them Special Strike Zones, just like the Special Economic Zones that spearheaded economic reform in the 1980s and 1990s. I guess that by then former president Jiang Zemin will have had a few sleepless nights.

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