Strike hits Citizen watch plant in south China

Over 1,000 workers have been on strike since Oct. 17 over wage deductions at a factory owned by Japanese watchmaker Citizen Holdings Co., Ltd. in the city of Shenzhen in south China's Guangdong province, according to local sources. Negotiations between the workers and the factory are ongoing, despite the local government's intervention. The strike started last Monday morning at the Guanxing Precision Machinery Product Factory, a Japanese-funded factory that manufactures watch chains for Citizen. The factory's 1,178 employees complained that the factory has deducted 40 minutes from their timecards every day since 2005 to account for the time the employees spend taking washroom breaks. The protestors also claimed that the factory has failed to issue pension payments. The strike was triggered by an Oct. 16 meeting at which factory managers proposed changing the way the wages are calculated in the factory's production department, angering the employees and causing them to request legal rights and repayment of their docked wages, according to a spokesman from the Human Resources Bureau of Bao'an district, where the factory is located. An investigation by the bureau showed that the factory purchased social insurance for the workers and paid their wages according to the law. The local government has arranged for the factory's managers to meet with the workers several times for negotiations in the wake of the strike. The factory finally replied to the strikers' complaints on Oct. 19, pledging to provide them with compensation. However, the employees have yet to call off the strike. The local government and human resources bureau are working on arranging more negotiations to help the two parties reach an agreement.