- On May 17, nearly 100 workers at one of Honda's China branches, Honda Auto Parts Manufacturing Company, went on strike for one day because they were deeply dissatisfied with low wages and benefits. The company promised to work out a solution within one week.
- On May 21, there were rumors the company had already sent recruiters to cities like Zhanjiang for new workers and would not raise wages at all, so workers went on strike for a second time.
- On May 22, the company announced the termination of labor contracts with two workers who "engaged in work-to-rule and striking and disobeyed company orders without warrant." The workers returned to work on that afternoon.
- On May 24, the company provided a solution to the strike, and said they would give employees a pay raise ranging from 120 to 155 yuan (around 17 to 22 U.S. dollars).
According to reports by Guangzhou media, the work stoppage that started May 17 in Honda Auto Parts Manufacturing Company has become even worse. Although the company offered a settlement on May 24, there is still wide disagreement about the details of the settlement among its employees.
Reporters asked Honda Motor (China) Investment Corporation about the strike by telephone, but have not received any replies.
There is a large gap between the pay increases the company offered and the workers' expected results, and most of the workers said they did not participate in the settlement negotiation.
Honda Auto Parts Manufacturing Company is located at Nanhai Shihan Industrial Park in Foshan, Guangdong province, and has a total investment of 98 million U.S. dollars. It began operations in March 2007 and is Honda's fourth overseas factory able to produce automatic transmissions through complete assembly lines.
An employee of the company posted a message about his wages on the Internet and disclosed that their first-level wage is only 1,211 yuan (around 180 U.S. dollars) per month. Generally speaking, they have to spend 250 yuan paying rent, 300 yuan on food, 100 yuan paying cell phone bills, 100 yuan on articles for daily use, and five yuan paying labor union membership fees each month, so they only have 456 yuan left every month.
"In the first year, we only got a pay raise of 28 yuan because the company just opened and lots of projects had not received investments. In the second year, we got a raise of 29 yuan because the company still had certain projects awaiting investments. In the third year, all projects had received investments, but we only got a raise of 40 yuan," another employee wrote on the Internet regarding the annual increases in their wages.
