Charles Starnes, co-owner of Specialty Medical Supplies, visited his Beijing factory to lay off 30 workers — and was taken prisoner by his employees while they demanded compensation:
But this isn’t an unusual occurrence in China. Lacking any other recourse for abuses, workers will sometimes act against managers when they’re on site. In January, for example, the staff of an electronics manufacturer in Shanghai went on strike and locked 18 managers inside a room to protest harsh rules imposed by new management, according to the Epoch Times. Usually, it doesn’t make for international headlines.
“This has been occurring for a long time,” said Li Quiang, with the advocacy group China Labor Watch, through a translator. “Workers do this because bosses have a history of just running off, and workers know this, so they trap them in, and say we’re not going to let you run, you’re going to pay us.”
They also do it because it works, he says, when official legal procedures are unreliable.
“The reasons it’s effective is because workers are really threatening the one thing the government cares most about, other than economic benefit, and that’s stability,” Quiang says. “The government will become concerned, and when workers are demanding compensation the government might force the company to give economic reparations. By using this method, the workers are bringing in the strongest agent of change.”
The China Law Blog just wrote about this: Avoid Being Taken Hostage In China.
“Chinese law actually allows for keeping people in China for the debts of their companies.”
And on a related note: The end of cheap China.