After a long, hot spring of industrial unrest, the Chinese government is trying to bring to a close the last in a series of labour disputes involving some of the world’s most powerful multinational companies.
On June 12, neighbourhood committee cadres visited the homes of 69 Walmart employees who remain locked in an arbitration case with their former employer in Changde, a small city in Hunan province.
The neighbourhood officials, who enforce Chinese Communist party diktats at street level, carried pictures of the workers and conveyed a simple message to them and their families: don’t interfere in Walmart’s removal of goods from the store, which closed in March, and accept the retailer’s enhanced settlement offer of Rmb3,000 ($480) each for “legal fees” incurred during the three-month dispute.