Call it a Lunar New Year's present to Chinese students. Hewlett Packard issued new guidelines Friday, days before the start of the annual holiday when much of that country shuts down, requiring is suppliers to only employ high school and college students who actively volunteer to do the work. Students should also be free to leave "upon reasonable notice" and have the ability to complain about unfair practices.
Though there are real reasons to worry about the enforcement of the policy given that many factories in China routinely violate basic labor laws, it should help curb some egregious practices. Stories in The Times and the work of labor activists have documented how educators and factory managers often conspire to force students to work on assembly lines. Sometimes, colleges or teachers receive a cut of their students' pay as compensation for making them available. As if that weren't bad enough, students can be forced to pay tuition while they work.
The change in policy by H.P. suggests that public pressure from journalists and activists might be having a positive impact on corporate behavior. Case in point, H.P. told Times reporters that it was adding the safeguards to burnish its image as a responsible company. Likewise, earlier investigations into the practices of Foxconn, a major vendor to H.P., Apple and others, appear to have played a role into Apple's decision to demand improved conditions at that supplier's factories. This week Foxconn announced that it had begun holding elections designed to allow workers to get onto union committees. (Most unions in China, including those at the company, are run by senior corporate executives, not workers.) Granted, it's far from clear that the elections Foxconn say it is holding will make any real difference.
Corporate announcements that they are going to give workers more rights are not likely to be sufficient on their own to eliminate labor abuses in China. A far bigger force re-shaping industrial relations in the country is the shrinking supply of young workers willing to toil in factories for low wages and in poor working conditions. As the number of willing workers declines, factories have no choice but to offer them a better deal.
China's government has itself taken steps in recent years to improve the lot of workers. Earlier in the week, China's State Council announced several policies designed to reduce income inequality in the country. Some of the changes could have a big impact on the economic well being of workers if they are carried out fully and quickly. Among those changes are commitments to raise minimum wages; raise bank interest rates that are currently kept at artificially low levels; make it easier for rural residents to obtain permits to move to cities; and increase spending on social programs by 2 percentage points of total government spending by 2015.
What would really help workers in China is the presence of real labor unions with collective bargaining rights. The government, however, is unlikely to grant unions that kind of power because such groups could one day pose a threat to the Party. Still, workers at some factories have informally and illegally organized themselves and won concessions from factories by protesting. Last year, 150 Foxconn workers threatened to commit suicide by jumping from the roof of their factory if the company did not negotiate with them on a change in their production duties. The protest ended when the company and local party officials agreed to negotiations.
Such protests and policy changes by companies like H.P. suggest that while labor conditions are far from ideal, workers are starting to gain ground and win some battles.
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