The Background to Two Strikes in Maersk Dongguan China
15 December 2008
A riot broke out amongst workers at Maersk Container Industry Dongguan Ltd in January 2008. The fierce action caused great damage to the Maersk factory buildings, and was reported by the Southern Metropolitan Daily, Guangzhou Daily and Yangchen Evening News of Guangzhou. The local government then sent a team to “properly settle” the incident. In May, however, the workers initiated another strike to protest against management continually increasing the intensity of work. 29 workers were fired by the management in order to suppress the strike. The media after the fact reported that the Maersk incident had already been “properly settled”. There was even positive news about the company facilitating the establishment of a trade union early this August. Nevertheless, the long-term hostility between workers and management inside Maersk has, apparently, been escalating dramatically. The situation is not as “peaceful” as the media has made out. Therefore, the first section of this report aims to try to sort out the whole story based on news from various media sources and comments on Net-ease forums and Baidu Blogs, in addition to our own investigation. In contrast, the second section reports on the brutality of the management of Maersk Dongguan.
See the full report here: maersk_gm_eng_final_23
