FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW YORK - After a Korean male manager slapped a female team leader Zhang Shouying at Doo Jung, a Shenzhen factory, on January 11, 2014, hundreds of workers went on strike.
Established in 1992, Doo Jung (China) Factory (Chinese name: 观澜斗井(中国)制品厂) is a wholly foreign-owned company invested by Doo June Products Inc. (Korea). Located in Guanlan, Shenzhen, the factory has about 600 employees and it mainly manufactures cosmetic brushes for multinational brand companies including Giorgio Armani, Christina Dior, Chanel, Mary Kay, NARS, Lancome, and L’Oreal.
From interviews with workers, China Labor Watch (CLW) learned about serious labor violations of Doo Jung. Doo Jung workers do three to five hours of overtime each day in addition to their normal eight-hour schedule. Workers usually work six days a week, but during busy seasons, they don’t even get Sundays off. Doo Jung never conducts pre-work occupational safety training for workers and the factory does not take effective protection measures for workers’ safety. What’s more, the factory has not purchased social insurance for workers as required by law, including those who have been working at Doo Jung for more than ten years.
Based on what the workers said during CLW’s investigation, Zhang Shouying had an argument with the Korean manager on January 11, 2014. During their conversation, the Korean manager slapped her, and when she tried to fight back, the manager hit her with the bottom of his shoes and kicked her abdomen. Thirty student workers of the factory first called a strike and were fired by the factory on the next day. During the local government’s suppression of the strike, a police officer using an electronic baton hurt a worker, who now is currently under treatment in the Shenzhen Guanlan People’s Hospital.
On January 13, about 400 workers continued to strike by petitioning at the Guanlan Local Government Office but were stopped by local officials. Three worker representatives, including Wu Xianhe, Luo Yong, and Luo Yonglian, were told by officials that they were being taken to participate in negotiations with the factory but were instead detained.
On the afternoon of January 13, the chief of Shenzhen Longhua Bureau of Labor went to the factory and negotiated with worker representatives, hoping that workers would make some concessions. As a result, Doo Jung offered to give each worker 2,000 RMB ($331) in compensation and repay two years of social insurance, despite the factory not paying some workers’ social insurance for much longer.
Some workers accepted the offer and agreed to restart work on January 14.
Below are photos related to the Doo Jung strike.
(When CLW was drafting this article, we also obtained information on an additional strike in Zhongshan, Guangdong. Many student workers of Guangdong Midea Environment Appliances MFG Co., Ltd. went on a strike to protest against the factory deducting their wages on January 13, 2014.)