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From BusinessWeek:

LG Display Co. factory workers in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing returned to work after the company agreed to double year-end bonuses, as a new protest reportedly broke out in a car parts plant in southern China.

More than 2,000 workers of the South Korean electronics company took part in a strike after their bonuses were cut to one-third of last year’s amount, Xinhua News Agency said today, citing Cheng Shijun, an official at the Nanjing Economic and Technological Development Zone, where the factory is located.

A separate protest also started over such payments at an auto parts factory in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou on Dec. 27, worker rights group China Labor Watch said in an e- mailed statement today.

China is seeking to alleviate social unrest and ordered all levels of governments to help needy people while maintaining social harmony ahead of New Year’s Day and the Chinese New Year after a two-week protest by residents of a southern Chinese village this month. Strikes, demonstrations and other protests in China doubled to at least 180,000 in 2010 from 2006, according to Sun Liping, a sociology professor at Beijing’s Tsinghua University.

At LG Display, the workers were unhappy about their year- end bonuses, equivalent to a monthly salary of 1,400 yuan ($221), Cheng was cited as saying by Xinhua. The report didn’t say what their bonuses have been raised to.

About 8,000 Chinese workers went on strike, Sina.com and QQ.com, a news website run by Tencent Holdings Ltd., reported yesterday. LG Display said in an e-mail that operations have returned to normal as employees returned beginning the night of Dec. 28 after an agreement was reached.

Toyota, Honda

Workers at Guangzhou Aries Auto Parts Corp., wholly owned by Japan’s Ahresty Corp. and whose clients include Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp., were unhappy over a reduction in year-end bonuses even as they had been made to work longer hours, China Labor Watch said.

An officer at Guangzhou Aries, who would only give her surname as Wang, declined to comment on whether there was a strike when contacted by phone. Calls to Ahresty, Honda and Toyota weren’t answered and their voicemails said they were closed for holidays.

From CLW:

On December 27, the year-end bonus cut triggered another strike, this time in Guangzhou, the biggest city in Guangdong Province in south China. Workers at the Guangzhou Alei Siti Auto Parts Corporation factory (广州阿雷斯提汽车零配​件有限公司)walked off their jobs against reductions in their year-end bonuses, even as they have been forced to work longer hours.

That was the state of the factory this Tuesday, when workers at the Guangzhou Alei Siti Auto Parts Company’s Guangzhou factory completely stopped production. According to workers on site, factory management requested on Wednesday that workers to return to work, a demand the workers refused. The factory then sent a representative to the strikers in the afternoon asking them to sign leave requests if they were not going back to work. The work stoppage is ongoing. As of yet, there have been no reports of violence in connection with these events and additionally, no worker representatives have raised banners or other visible signs of protest in the factory district.

The proximate cause of the strike was the reduction in year-end bonuses from the previous year’s twice the workers’ base salaries to 1.5 times the workers’ base salaries this year. This, despite the fact that inflation has increased the cost of living everywhere in China. Management claimed that its decision to reduce the bonus was due to the Japanese earthquake reducing demand for production. However, the workers dispute this, as they believe this past year’s production orders have been roughly the same as they were in 2010.

However, there was another long-standing grievance that workers had with the factory, and that was their long working hours. Workers are currently working 12-hour workdays, forcing them to work about 50 hours of overtime every month.

The factory experienced another strike this April over low salaries. In the end, the management responded by increasing monthly salaries by 300 RMB (about $47) and granting the workers who went on strike the ability to return to their jobs. Workers can now expect to make about 3,300 RMB (about $522) a month.

The factory was founded in August, 2008. The factory started making unsophisticated, partly-finished parts for cars and motorcycles along with molds for motorcycle casings but recently it has branched into making and servicing more technologically sophisticated auto parts. It is currently divided into 5 factory districts, and has approximately 1500 employees. Principal clients of the factory include Honda, Toyota, Dongfeng-Nissan and Suzuki.

Here is a link of a related video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-lALTKClmo&feature=plcp&context=C39ec81cUDOEgsToPDskLPRN3W_eHU_eX-sJ8QLoNh

From Zhongguo Laodongzhe Lianmeng:

广州阿雷斯提汽车配件有限公司，从12月27日下午开始罢工，28日已经演变成一千多人的游行。罢工的导火索是年终奖只有1.5倍，比往年少，其它厂如一汽、大众等年终奖却有27个月。资方的态度很强硬，29日厂方出通告：“今天还不上班的员工，一律以旷工处理”。

广州阿雷斯提汽车配件有限公司创建于2003年8月，是一家日资独资企业，客户有本田、东风日产、铃木等日本汽车制造商。

From Boxun:

临近年终之际，广东省相继有外资公司逾千员工大规模罢工。其中广州一间日资汽车配件公司，工人因不满年终奖金减少而罢工抗议。劳工维权人士认为，不少企业开源节流，为明年的经济衰退期作好准备。(姬励思报道)

广州阿雷斯提汽车配件有限公司，员工不满公司今年的年终奖只有一倍半，较往年少，过千名工人从周二起连续两日罢工。

该公司一名员工周五回应记者查询时承认工人罢工一事，但就说现时已全部复工。

问：工人是否曾罢工？
答： 是。
问： 罢工多少天？
答：这个不是太清楚。
问： 原因为何？
答： 具体我也不清楚。
问： 今天恢复正常没有？
答： 恢复了。工人都复工了。

另一名员工表示，去年的年终奖有两倍。她说： “我听同事说去年是挺好的，不只为何今年这样。去年效益好，年终奖有两倍。”

有该公司的工人在微博上透露，从今年夏季开始，阿雷斯提的领导在没有与员工协商的情况下，增加员工的劳动强度，但同时降低员工福利。员工遂于周二自发团结起来，希望通过正常交涉解决，但公司态度强硬。不予解决，更要求公安机关的认员前来驱散工人。

记者试图在微博上联络该名工人，但至截稿前都未有回应。

该公司一名管理层人员拒绝回应有关工人罢工一事，只表示公司已委托政府处理，但就拒绝透露那个部门。

他说：“这个我没办法跟你沟通，我们已经委托政府来处理，你跟政府沟通吧。”

广州阿雷斯提汽车配件有限公司创建于2003年，是一家日资独资企业，客户有本田、东风日产、铃木等日本汽车制造商。

韩资LGD南京厂区的5个厂房，约八千员工亦为争取年终奖金，于周一集体罢工，其间更有员工打砸食堂泄忿。关注劳工权益的广东维权人士李原风认为，不排除有企业故意减少员工的年终奖金，为明年预期衰弱的经济作准备。此举对工人不公平。

他说：“企业今年的订单，员工没有少做，员工认为应该维持去年的奖金，企业可能是考虑明年的经济情况，但对员工而言，他明年在那里打工也不知道。”

另外，阳江市纳谷科技公司周四亦有过千员工集体罢工，抗议公司实行两班制，工人要上夜班，但没有增加工资。

该工司一名员工表示工人周五已复工，亦透露公司近日实行两班制。她说： “工人已全部复工，其他情况我不方便说。问：是否最近实行两班制?答：是。但具体我不清楚。”

纳谷科技公司是美德合资企业，主要以设计、生产、销售节能环保的LED系列手电筒、灯具和发光产品为主。