This is an interesting Al-Jazeera documentary which is an investigative piece looking at the practices of recruitment agents who move workers from Bangladesh to Singapore and Malaysia. Workers are paying high fees to agents in Bangladesh to secure jobs and work visas (6K in Singapore, 3K in Malaysia) but often find themselves without a job and owing huge amounts to loan sharks they have borrowed money from.  The documentary also focuses on an underground banking system that operates a parallel system moving money between countries which allows this payments to be remitted undetected.   The report argues that those hiring the workers are also taking a cut of the payment for recruiting these men.  This is interesting for business who are using workers on this 'outsourced model'.  Do you know where and how your workers enter your workforce? For those looking at their supply chain - do you know where the workers are coming from for the companies within your supply chain?  The treatment of migrant workers is a hot topic that is set to stay .

(From Al-Jazeera English)

Walk into a factory in China today, and chances are you'll find agency (or dispatched) workers on the line; on-demand employees contracted from labour agencies to fill in when required (usually during peak periods). Unlike regular employees, dispatched workers have no contract with the factory but are employed by an agency that sends them out when needed, and takes them back when the job is finished. This employment model has become big business in China, and one of the most famous dispatch agencies among the many popping up these days is the Quanshun Labour Dispatch Company.

This company is famous because Zhang Quanshou, the founder, is a former migrant-worker-turned-entrepreneur who is routinely hailed in the Chinese media for pioneering a new model of labour dispatch regarded as a win-win for workers and employers alike. He is known locally as the "migrant worker commander", and has been elected as a delegate to the National People’s Congress. So it's interesting to see this critical view from CLNT.

If you have a supply chain in China, take reputation and other forms of risk seriously, and are still wondering why dispatched workers are a problem, then hit the link above. To put it another way, here is an extract of a translation from the latest recruitment leaflet from the Shenzhen branch of Quanshun Human Resources Development Co. Ltd:

"Recruitment requirements: young male and female who are age 16 and above, healthy and able to endure hardship. Must have valid documentation. No prior experience required."

Globalisation Monitor - a Hong Kong NGO - has published a book documenting the long fight by Chinese workers over cadmium poisoning in battery factories owned and operated by Gold Peak Batteries (a Singapore-listed subsidiary of the Gold Peak Group, a Hong Kong-based conglomerate). No Choice but to Fight! A documentation of battery women workers’ struggle for health and dignity takes the reader through China’s official complaints system, the Bureau of Letters and Calls, to disciplined picket lines that briefly brought production at a major global battery factory to a halt. You can see more here, including details of how to purchase the book.

The big story from China is, of course, the at least 156 deaths in Uighur riots in Xinjiang (see Google News items here). Buried in most reports is the fact that this particular outbreak of rioting has its genesis in a clash between dominant Han Chinese and ethnic minority Uighur workers in a Hong Kong-owned Guangdong toy factory in late June (which was reported in the Hong Kong press; see here, in Chinese only). CSR Asia will have a column on this (in Chinese) in the Hong Kong Daily next week (the first in a regular CSR column we'll be doing for the paper). I'll do an English version for CSR Asia Weekly this week, of which a short version is this: the brawl in late June (in which over 100 workers were injured (16 seriously) and two were killed) is not an isolated incident (although deaths obviously are rare). Tension in factories between workers from different areas is a major problem that few factories manage well. The toy factory riot in question was complicated by a recent influx of Uighur worker and the arrest for rape of Uighur workers, but missing from the factory was a basic component of industrial relations; i.e., a workable and effective grievance mechanism. In fact, this basic element of good workplace relations is missing from most factories in China (especially large ones where it is essential; and the Hong Kong toy factory in question is a very large one indeed and supplies to major brands). It's clear that a good grievance system is not going to solve Uighur grievances in Xinjiang, nor prevent all ethnic clashes, but if there is no mechanism at all for workers to air complaints (and have them acted upon), then this sort of thing is going to continue (as it has done for the last 20 years or more). CSR Asia works in China to develop these mechanisms (via factory training - our FIT5 program, and in partnership with NGOs to provide hotline services for factory workers to contact trusted NGOs that can then relay messages to brands and retailers buying from the factory).

China Labour Bulletin has translated parts of one of the most talked about blogs this year in China into English. In January, Xiao Sanliang (萧三郎), started to blog on his return to the Anhui countryside after working in Shanghai. He talked a lot about how he felt returning to a poor rural area after living, studying and working in one of the most vibrant cities in China. His blog has been republished and discussed a lot on the Chinese internet, but until now it's not been accessible to non-Chinese readers. CLB offers these introductory sentences that captures Xiao's mood:

"[Going back home was] a depressing experience. It was a leap from post- to pre-modernism, from the 21st Century back into the mediaeval world, and it left me with a mixture of feelings - anger, sadness, bitterness, impotence and much else."

CLB has provided a lengthy translation that gives a glimpse into rural village life and the workplace, and offers insights into China's rapid transformation. It also tells us something, I believe, about desire; something often missed in most of the work on migrants, which still too often talks only of 'push' (e.g., poverty) and 'pull' (e.g., wages) factors that determine the choices people like Xiao make. It's worth remembering that migrants have desires deeper and more ambiguous than these simple determinants inherited from Marx and others.