Company Making Shoes For Nike, Timberland, Kenneth Cole Agrees To Pay Workers Their Housing Fund $

[Omaha Steve]

Images taken by striking workers and posted on the Weibo microblogging site show a heavy police presence at a strike by about 5,000 shoemakers in Dongguan, China, March 10, 2015. Weibo via China Labor Watch

http://www.ibtimes.com/china-strike-update-company-making-shoes-nike-timberland-kenneth-cole-agrees-pay-1861026

China Strike Update: Company Making Shoes For Nike, Timberland, Kenneth Cole Agrees To Pay Workers Their Housing Fund Money

By Angelo Young on March 26 2015 5:29 PM EDT

A Chinese shoe manufacturer that faced a strike earlier this month has agreed to pay workers in cash from a housing fund program that’s part of the country’s social insurance system. The Chinese-language Southern Metropolis Daily reported Wednesday that Stella Shoe Co. has agreed to let the workers cash in their housing benefit.

Earlier this month, workers walked off the job in Stella's Dongguan city factory, which makes shoes for well-known brands like Nike, Timberland and Kenneth Cole. They demanded the company pay its government-mandated housing fund money. The issue largely affects migrant workers who don’t qualify to become local residents and must leave after their employment ends. Employer benefits have become an increasingly contentious issue in China that has led to a spate of strikes and demonstrations.

“Most of these migrant workers can’t buy housing in the cities where they work, so they withdraw the funds when their employment ends and they go back home,” said Kevin Slaten, program coordinator for New York-based China Labor Watch. Chinese need permits to relocate to the big cities, but the process is complicated and difficult.

Housing fund reforms that went into effect in Dongguan, in Guangdong province, on March 1 forbid the practice of letting migrant workers withdraw housing fund money as cash. But Stella agreed to allow a “one-time” withdrawal of workers’ housing fund money paid before the regulations went into effect.

FULL story at link.