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Labour updating petition on China workers' rights

By Doug Palmer | Reuters

Workers react as they stand by a fence during a strike at a Honda Motor vehicle manufacturing plant in Zhongshan, Guangdong province on 10 June 2010.File photo/Reuters/Tyrone Siu/China

Amid reports of increased unrest among workers in China, the largest US labour group is considering asking President Barack Obama’s administration to investigate whether China gains an unfair trade advantage by denying workers’ rights, a top union official said on Monday.

Such a request would further strain US-China trade relations, already weighed down by accusations that China undervalues its currency and does far too little to protect US goods from counterfeiting and piracy.

“We’re in process of updating (petitions the group filed in 2004 and 2006 asking for a workers’ rights probe) so we can be ready to file if we decide to,” Thea Lee, deputy chief of staff at the AFL-CIO, told Reuters.

Unrest in China at Honda Motor and iPhone maker Foxconn International confirm “the arguments we’ve made for several years, which is that Chinese workers have been repressed and their wages are not in any way reflecting their productivity,” Lee said.

The AFL-CIO, using a US trade law mechanism known as “Section 301” petition, twice tried unsuccessfully to persuade former President George W Bush administration’s to probe working conditions in China.

If the 11.5-million-member labour group decides to file a new petition, the US Trade Representative’s office would have 45 days to decide whether to accept it or not.

If it agrees to launch an investigation, US trade officials would have at least one year to complete the probe and then decide what steps to take.

The AFL-CIO wanted Bush to slap sanctions on Chinese exports to the United States and ratchet them back only in response to progress in China on workers’ rights.

They urged the Bush administration to negotiate a binding labor agreement with China and to require companies doing business in China to disclose wages, hours and working conditions of their affiliates and contractors.

Although the AFL-CIO campaigned heavily for Obama, they have resisted putting him on the spot by asking for an investigation into China’s record on workers’ rights.

They also have not filed a petition asking Obama to bring a World Trade Organization case over China’s currency practices, even though they pressed Bush several times for that and blasted him each time he refused.

By updating the workers’ rights petition, the AFL-CIO is putting itself in a position to act, Lee said.

Whether it does could depend on whether the recent spate of job actions in China lead to significant labor reforms, like the right of workers to bargain collectively.

“If it looks like there’s really major developments happening, we might hold off for a little while to give it time to work,” Lee said.

Copyright © 2010 Reuters

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