“No Choice but to Fight!”
A documentation of battery women workers’ struggle for health and dignity
A new book on Chinese workers’ rights, published by Globalization Monitor with an introduction by Agnes Jongerius, President of the Netherlands Trade Union Confederation FNV.
"From exploited victims of globalisation to well-organised campaigners for compensation and safe working conditions, the journey of these employees at a multinational company is nothing short of inspiring. It takes the reader through China’s official complaints system, the Bureau of Letters and Calls, to disciplined picket lines that briefly brought production at a major global battery factory to a halt. It is a story of struggle, transformation and hope. Emerging from workshops thick with red clouds of poisonous cadmium oxide dust, come exhausted young women determined to change their fate and expose company disinformation on their deteriorating health. Despite official restrictions on organising and media access, these extraordinary workers demonstrate time and again the power of traditional trade union values: solidarity, determination and the importance of organised labour in protecting workers’ rights against a predatory system. At the end of the day, the Gold Peak workers’ story takes us back to basics. It is a timely reminder that ILO Conventions 87 and 98, on the rights to organise and to bargain collectively respectively, must be universally respected. I believe this book takes us a significant step closer to that goal."
Agnes Jongerius.
To buy this book please contact May Wong at Globalization Monitor - maywong@globalmon.org.hk.
Price: US$10 or EUR €10 or HK$80. Please add 20% of the book price for airmail postage.