“What happens when the boss actually abides by the law during a factory closure in China?“, 1 Feb 2016

…Xing Ang is just one of thousands of factories in the Pearl River Delta that have closed down over the last few years; what makes it noteworthy however is the fact that there was no mass protest or demonstration by workers demanding wage arrears and severance pay.

According to a labour activist with contacts at the factory, the vast majority of the factory’s 2,000 workers were happy with the lay-off deal offered by management and left the factory well before the official closure date without a fuss. Most employees understood that times were tough and that sooner or later the factory would close. As long as they got what they were owed, it seems that they were prepared to accept redundancy and move on.

The only lingering disputes involved those employees who had been injured at work and wanted to get more work-related injury compensation than was being offered. In most cases however these disagreements involved a few thousand yuan in each case at most, the activist said.

The relatively incident-free closure was the result of Xing Ang’s Taiwanese owner Stella International’s diligence in ensuring that all employees got their legally mandated severance pay, full overtime and social insurance payments and other benefits…