Workers at LG plant in China strike over bonus

Workers at an LG Display factory in eastern China struck work, bringing production to a halt, the company said yesterday. This comes as the latest show of strength by the country's increasingly assertive labour force.

However, employees started returning by the busloads in the afternoon, after LG Display posted notices saying shifts would resume and year-end bonuses would be equal to "200 per cent."  The company apparently meant the Lunar New Year bonuses would be equivalent to two months' salary, addressing workers' complaints that their bonuses were too small.

Claire Ohm, a spokeswoman in Seoul for the South Korean company, confirming the labour dispute following the publication of a by the New York-based China Labour Watch said the strike began on Monday.

She said some of the company's production had been suspended. She added she could not confirm that bonus issues were the cause of the strike but said the production at the company would resume tomorrow.

Many of China's industrial workers are migrant labourers from villages and are now increasingly resorting to strikes to establish a foothold in urban areas.

Ohm did not say how many workers had stopped work or how much production had been curtailed.