14 DAY TRIAL // This may not be as serious as all the suicides at that Foxconn plant, but the problems in China are definitely not over, as workers going on strike will attest to.
This may be a case of a happy ending, although the agreement reached could mean a whole number of things.
About 1,000 employees from a Jingyuan Computer Group plant in Shenzen (which makes products for Apple and IBM) went on strike over tough conditions.
More precisely, they walked out and blocked a highway to protest long working hours, though more complaints were raised than that.
The staff also said they were repeatedly berated by supervisors, that older workers were often laid off and that there were high injury rates at the factory.
The overtime was probably the biggest reason, however, being a persistent factor that finally made their patience snap.
According to them, they have been forced to work 100 to 120 hours of overtime each, per month.
The unfortunate fact is that such troubles are not at all unique in China and they probably come as a consequence of the high population.
A high population means that there is never any real shortage of workforce, so managers and supervisors can always hold that over the heads of their workers.
Also, switching someone apparently underproductive with someone new is easy to accomplish as well.
This isn't to insinuate this is what has been happening here, but the connection is easy to make and workers from other factories, that also went on strike previously, complained about worse.
Among other things, a manager from a lingerie factory supposedly told a woman to jump off a roof.
Jingyuan did, at least, agree to lower overtime hours, so there was a small bit of progress here.
Nonetheless, the issue remains that it took a full-blown strike, which mobilized hundreds of police officers, some in riot gear, to win even this small concession.