Labour News

Since February, various parts of China has resumed work and production when the COVID-19 pandemic was reportedly under control. However, due to the serious epidemic in Europe and the United States, orders from abroad have been greatly reduced, which takes another dent into the Chinese economy. Many factories face closures, while workers are furloughed and dismissed. Foxconn and Shanghai Pegatron, the two largest OEMs of Apple's mobile phones in China, have laid off employees due to a major business decline.

Due to geopolitical reasons, China has a very large influence on Cambodia historically. As China's economic might continue to strengthen, China's economic impact on Cambodia is also increasing. In recent years, the Chinese government has always stressed that Chinese investment is beneficial to local development in her official propaganda; however, the actual situation seen during our visit to Cambodia with the ITUC was quite different.

Ms Huang is an independent journalist and a women's rights activist, famous for bringing the #MeToo movement to the public. On 17 October, she was detained by Guangzhou City police, for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble". Reportedly, Huang participated in Hong Kong's anti-extradition law protest in June. 

Huang is a well-known advocate for women's rights, gender equality, rights of vulnerable groups, ant-corruption and environmental issues.

It is generally believed that delivery workers could hardly protest with collective effort, as they are individuals in the gig economy. However, data shows a phenomenon of the opposite: A total of 47 protests had been launched by delivery workers between August 2017 and July 2018; collective actions took place more frequently especially at later stage, i.e. between May and July 2018, that was referred to as “national food delivery worker unrest”. This report will introduce the background of the industry, its emergence, working conditions of delivery workers, and analyse their protests in the past year.