Chan is proud of a project the group carried out after negotiations with American computer giant Hewlett Packard. HP allowed SACOM to present training courses on labor law to workers in two of its supplier factories in Dongguan. The company also began to look at ways in which they could provide stable order books for suppliers to give managers room to improve labor rights. "Delivering ideas about legal rights is just one part of the training program. We hope that in the long run workers will be able to elect their own representatives so that they can communicate with their managers," said Chan.
SACOM's foot soldiers are university teachers and students in Hong Kong and China's mainland. Often the student activists come from a similar background to the rural migrants. Chan herself was born in Hong Kong in the 1970s' after her parents migrated from a poor area of Guangdong Province. The group has over 100 academic advisors who give the campaigns focus and direction. They organize seminars to provide a theoretical framework for the group's work but fieldwork and investigations are carried out by SACOM's full-time staff and student volunteers.
SACOM has received project funding from Swiss-based Catholic NGO Bread for All, and German NGO World Economy Ecology and Development. Chan makes no apology for seeking overseas funds. "We can't get adequate funding from Hong Kong. We are quite confrontational," she said, smiling, "but we get also quite generous donations from our academic advisors."
Chan welcomes the new Chinese labor contract law that took effect in January 2008. One of the law's main provisions aims to stamp out abuses associated with casual labor by forcing companies to draw up written contracts of employment. The law allows workers to claim compensation of double their wages for every month they work without a written contract. The new law, says Chan, "has increased the cost of noncompliance, and provided concrete compensation for workers."
Workers have been able to bring many successful cases to labor disputes committees, says Chan. They are often assisted by labor support groups offering hotline services and legal advice. Most workers are aware of the labor contract law, she said, and are keen to take legal action if they believe their contracts are not valid. But according to Chan, there is still a big gap between the law's paper provisions and effective enforcement.
One of the main challenges facing labor organizers in China is the mobility of the workforce. Migrant workers may be in the same factory for just a year or so before changing jobs or going home to get married. Given the high turnover, workers' actions usually take the form of wildcat strikes and protests that flare up and die down over a few days. The workers organize their own informal groups, say Chan, often locality-based – for example workers from Sichuan Province may group together. Workers dormitories, Chan says, are also a focus for organization where workers raise funds and organize petitions to the government.
The key issue, says Chan, is that China's residency laws make it difficult for migrant workers to put down permanent roots in the cities. The "hukou" system institutionalizes an assumption that they will return home to marry, have children and eventually retire. But for young people used to the greater opportunities and aspirations of urban life, going home to poor rural areas is an increasingly remote and unattractive prospect.
As regards China's official labor movement, the All China Association of Trades Unions (ACFTU) Chan said some grassroots cadres are sympathetic to the workers and negotiate with employers or use their administrative power to get justice for individuals or small groups. But in general Chinese unions do not take industrial action. Unions are becoming more aggressive in organizing foreign invested enterprises and private companies but Chan maintains this is a membership drive to replace numbers lost in state sector downsizing rather than a sign of militancy. Branch chairmen often double up as HR managers, and if individual leaders become outspoken and confront the management they can be easily fired, said Chan.
