Daily Lessons from Life 15 June 2010 - China urges improvements at work as Honda strike ends

"China urges improvements at work as Honda strike ends - Tue, Jun 15, 2010 Reuters

ZHONGSHAN, CHINA - Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao urged better treatment of the nation's vast army of migrant labourers as employees at a Honda factory halted the latest strike that has laid bare growing worker assertiveness.

The strike at the factory making locks for Honda vehicles was the latest labour dispute to hit factories in southern China's Pearl River Delta, a sprawling industrial zone that makes nearly a third of the country's exports, by workers demanding a greater piece of China's growing economic wealth."

The rumbling has been going on for a while now since the workers can see the bosses making a lot more wealth than them. While it is reasonable for the entrepreneurs to make more since they put up the capital for the businesses and take the greatest risks, the vastly higher and bigger rewards for the bosses may not make reasonable sense to the workers if the difference is more than 50x or 100x?

Lessons for me are:

1. wages are not entirely set by the bosses but the industries they are in. Some industries have enterprises that compete viciously and in a suicidal manner to undercut each other till blood floods freely! These industries will NOT be able to afford too much wages to their workers anyway. So, even if the government sets the minimal wage, and if it is beyond their affordability, there will be no job!;

2. the need to create a vast consuming class of wage earners from lowly paid migrant workers so as to sustain the growth of domestic economic is short sighted in my mind as consumption is not the sustainable way to grow. Even if the planners said there is a need to create strong short term consumption before inducing or guiding the sustainable long term balance in earning and consuming, the human nature of wanting instant result will mean prolonged short term consumption as the 'rewarding' habit to keep!;

3. the 100+m migrant workers needs to have jobs and if the export industries they supported become uncompetitive due to the 'higher' wages demanded and lost the businesses, there will be no fall back! This is especially so as it seems that China exports sell mainly due to its cost competitiveness and not value or innovation. It is a double edges sword that cut both ways. Be careful.

May the lot of the migrant workers continue to improve. May the pace of change not be at a blinding speed that it tripped itself!!