“世界工厂”凸现劳工问题 Chinese workers swap angst for anger
The workers' defiance was written in red ink. “If you are Chinese you will definitely not sign – one for all and all for one,” a striking Honda employee wrote over a form urging his colleagues to renounce further industrial action. | 工人们用红笔写下了自己的反抗。“是中国人就不要签字——我为人人，人人为我！”一名罢工的本田(Honda)员工在一张公司要求他们放弃进一步劳工行动的表格上这样写道。 |
Suicidal angst is giving way to worker solidarity in southern China, as a factory strike that has halted the Japanese carmaker's nationwide operations enters its second week. | 在华南地区，自杀的焦虑情绪正被工人的团结所取代——迫使这家日本汽车制造商中国业务全面停产的罢工活动已进入第二周。 |
Most worryingly for the Chinese government, the industrial unrest at Honda and other big employers in Guangdong province is raising questions about the nature of work itself on 21st century factory floors. | 最让中国政府担心的是，发生在本田及广东省其它大型企业的工潮，引发了各界对21世纪工厂本质的质疑。 |
A new generation of alienated Chinese workers is signalling that it is determined to fight back. | 情绪不满的新一代中国工人用行动表明，自己决心反击。 |
“We're different from our parents' generation,” said Cha Jinhua, a Guangdong-based labour activist. “Their wishes were simple – earn some money and return to their home towns. We want to stay in the cities and enjoy our lives here. But we demand respect.” | 广东省劳工维权人士茶金华表示：“我们与父辈不同。他们的愿望很简单——挣一些钱，然后回到老家。我们想留在城市，享受这里的生活。但我们需要尊重。” |
The angst on China's shop floor hit international headlines just over a week ago when a ninth worker killed himself at a huge factory belonging to Foxconn, the Taiwanese contract manufacturer for groups such as Apple, Dell and HP. | 数日前，当台湾代工企业富士康(Foxconn)旗下一家大型工厂发生第九起工人自杀事件时，中国车间工人的焦虑登上了各大国际媒体的头条。富士康为苹果(Apple)、戴尔(Dell)和惠普(HP)等企业代工。 |
The company's usually media-unfriendly founder, Terry Gou, rushed to the facility in Shenzhen, a manufacturing centre bordering Hong Kong, to defuse the crisis. Within hours of his departure, a 10th Foxconn worker was dead and the company's image-conscious clients said they would launch their own investigations into the tragedies. | 平时对媒体素不友好的公司创始人郭台铭(T确errry Gou)赶到位于制造业中心深圳的工厂，试图化解危机。他离开后仅仅几个小时，第10名富士康员工便自杀身亡。该公司的不少客户，注重自身形象，将各自对这些悲剧事件展开调查。 |
The ensuing and unrelated strike at Honda's transmission plant in Foshan, another factory town, has added an unexpected political element to China's evolving labour crisis. The right to strike was excised from the Chinese constitution in 1982, and attempts by workers to organise outside the official All China Federation of Trade Unions are frowned on by Beijing. | 随后，在佛山本田变速器工厂发生 的另一起罢工事件，为中国不断升级的劳工危机增加了一些意料外的政治元素。中国宪法于1982年取消了罢工的权利，任何不经官方中华全国总工会(All China Federation of Trade Unions)组织的工人罢工，都会遭致北京方面的不满。 |
Yet Honda's workers have achieved this, while three other car factories that rely on the plant's components have had to close as well. | 但本田的工人们做到了这一点，而其它三家靠罢工工厂提供零部件的整车厂也不得不随之停工。 |
“The strike and negotiations are continuing,” one Honda worker told the Financial Times yesterday. | 一名本田员工昨日对英国《金融时报》表示：“罢工和谈判都还在继续。” |
“We are doing this ourselves. The [official] union doesn't represent us and never showed up [to the talks]. We don't even know who the union chairman is. We want to elect our own chairman but the request was turned down.” | “我们自己在做这些事。（官方）工会并不代表我们，也从未（在谈判中）露面。我们甚至不知道工会主席是谁。我们希望选举自己的工会主席，但要求遭到拒绝。” |
If he and his colleagues succeed in securing higher wages and voting in their own union representative, as they are demanding, their victory will have far wider repercussions than the quiet acts of individual desperation witnessed at Foxconn. | 如果他和他的同事能如愿以偿，成功地提高工资，选举自己的工会代表，这一胜利将比富士康员工悄无声息的个人舍命行为，引起更广泛的反响。 |
When confronted by worker suicides or industrial unrest, the initial tendency of Foxconn, Honda and other multinational manufacturers is to react with bewilderment. | 面对工人们自杀或罢工等行为，富士康、本田及其它跨国制造商的最初反应都很困惑。 |
Their shop floors are modern, clean and well-lit, they point out. Recreational facilities are first-rate. Last week at Foxconn, Mr Gou proudly showed reporters his factory's Olympic-sized swimming pool. | 它们指出，它们的车间现代、清洁、灯光明亮。休闲设施都是一流的。就在上周，郭台铭还骄傲地向记者展示了工厂里奥运场馆规模的游泳池。 |
However, this appears to be missing the point. It is the often-repetitive, tedious nature of assembly-line work that is haunting workers, who are further exhausted by constant overtime and night shifts. | 然而，这似乎未能抓住问题的关键。让工人们备受煎熬的是流水线作业重复单调的工作性质。此外，不断地加班和倒夜班也让他们精疲力竭。 |
“Whether you live on the farm or in a factory, you still have to work,” said a tired 18-year-old student trainee at Honda, whose shift runs from 10.20pm to 7.20am. | 本田一名疲倦的18岁实习生说：“不管是在农场还是工厂，你都必须工作。”他的工作时间是从晚上10点20分到次日清晨7点20分。 |
While not actively involved in the strike, he is supportive of his older colleagues' industrial action. | 尽管他没有积极参与罢工，但他对年长同事的劳工行动表示支持。 |
He has refused to sign the “promise note” in which Honda asked workers to pledge that they “absolutely will not lead, organise or participate in work slowdowns, stoppages or strikes”. | 他拒绝在“承诺书”上签字——本田让工人们保证，“将绝不领导、组织、参与怠工、停工、罢工”。 |
The note also demanded that employees shun un-authorised gatherings that “violate employment regulations, cause the company economic harm or have a negative social influence”. | 承诺书还要求员工不参与未经公司事先许可的集会等“违反《就业规则》、会给公司造成经济损失及消极社会影响的活动”。 |
“If they secure a higher wage, I will consider working here after I graduate,” added the Honda trainee, who currently earns 900 renminbi ($132, €107, £91) a month. | “如果他们涨工资了，我会考虑毕业后来这里工作，”那位实习生补充道。目前，他每月挣900元人民币（合132美元）。 |
At least a third of the transmission plant's employees are interns, reflecting a wider use of students and temporary employees across China's manufacturing sector as demand for labour outstrips supply. This, in turn, has increased the bargaining power of workers across southern China. | 在本田变速器工厂，至少三分之一的员工为实习生。这反映出由于劳动力供不应求，中国制造业正普遍使用学生和临时工。这反过来也增强了华南劳工的谈判力。 |
“The previous availability of labour in China meant you could de-automate industrial processes and turn cheap workers into machines,” said Arthur Kroeber, managing director at the Dragonomics consultancy in Beijing. “If workers didn't like it, they knew there were 10 other guys waiting to take their job. Now there's no one waiting to take their job.” | 北 京龙洲经讯(Dragonomics)董事总经理葛艺豪(Arthur Kroeber)表示：“以往中国充足的劳动力意味着，你可以在工业生产过程中去自动化，把廉价的劳动力变成机器。如果工人们不愿意，他们知道，还有10 个人等着顶替他。现在，没人愿意干他们的工作。” |
The chief executive of a large textile firm that employs tens of thousands of people in Guangdong said: “Workers just don't want to do the same job every day of every week. It's very mind-numbing and must be very depressing.” | 广东省一家拥有数万名员工的大型纺织企业的老总表示：“工人们只是不想日复一日地做同样的工作。这让人精神麻木，肯定非常压抑。” |
译者/何黎 |
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