Chinese Economy: Riots at the Nerf Toy Factory

China Economic Unrest:
Riot at the Chinese Nerf Factory



Workers Demand Pay

---

Twenty years ago, "Riot at the Chinese Nerf Factory" would have been more likely to be the name of a punk rock CD than a headline about economic news.

China hasn't been insulated from world economic woes.


From Nerf factory riot in China and Workers riot at Chinese toy factory:

Riots are breaking out in factories in Dongguan as bankruptcies and layoffs throw thousands out of work with wages owing. South China, "the world's factory," is in chaos, faltering. After the mid-autumn festival, enormous numbers of workers simply stayed home in the provinces, rather than returning to work in Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Dongguan.

Cory Doctorow, Boing Boing: "This AP story talks about a riot in the factory where Nerf toys were manufactured for Hasbro -- and no, they didn't fight with Nerf bats."

According to AP: "Shipping containers on trucks in the factory's courtyard were loaded with Hasbro boxes containing Nerf toys."

One report said the violence was touched off when the owner of the plant, Hong Kong's Kader Holdings Co. Ltd., began laying off 216 migrant workers--the factory employs 6500. Some 80 senior workers complained that they were shorted on severance pay. These 80 mobilized a mob of 500 friend and unemployed workers.

"The factory's management and the local officials really look down on the workers," said one laid-off worker who would only give his surname, Qiao, because he feared criticizing the company might jeopardize his chance of getting any compensation.

Qiao accused the police of igniting the riot. "The workers just got angry because the police hit them first," said the 30-year-old migrant from the southwestern province of Sichuan, devastated by last May's monster earthquake.

Basic pay for an assembly-line worker at the factory is 770 yuan ($112) a month, with overtime rare now that most of the Christmas orders have been filled.

Note to all those who believe China is ready to swallow up the USA: China's got economic problems of its own.

[Unrest by workers] is "a major concern in major industrial zones in Guangdong, which has been hit hard by a series of factors: rising costs of wages and raw materials along with currency fluctuations and the global financial crisis. More than 7,000 companies in Guangdong have gone bust or moved elsewhere in the first nine months of the year, the official China Daily newspaper recently reported."

One prediction: this will not be the last story readers will see about civil unrest over economic problems in China.


by Mondo
image: dbkp file

St. Louis Bomb Blast: Economic Terrorism?

Bomb Blast in St. Louis Parking Garage
Injures Prominent Takeover Attorney

---

As they hunt for the person(s) responsible for a Thursday morning bomb blast that injured John Gillis, investigators are likely considering the possibility the incident might somehow be linked to the current economic crisis. And for good reason.

Gillis, is senior counsel at Armstrong Teasdale, a large law firm based in downtown St. Louis, according to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch report published today. A bio page on the prominent law firm's web site attributes a number of "significant accomplishments" to the 69-year-old St. Louis attorney, including:

* Counsel to seller in $210 million sale of Nasdaq listed company in negotiated tender offer followed by a back-end merger;

* Counsel to seller in $500 million sale of Nasdaq listed bank holding company;

* Issuer's counsel in $50 million dutch auction self tender offer for common shares; and

* Counsel to boards of directors or special board committees in a number of negotiated and hostile takeover transactions.

Just after 11 a.m. yesterday, according to witness accounts, Gillis attempted to move a package from near his vehicle parked on the sixth parking level of a 16-story office building adjacent Gillis' condo-building home in Clayton, an affluent St. Louis suburb. As reported in this post yesterday, the bomb blast shook the downtown area and prompted evacuations of area buildings.

Considering the type of work Gillis has performed, the enormous amounts of money at stake and the heady personalities often involved in such high-stakes transactions, it will be interesting to find out whether or not this crime indeed has its roots in the economic crisis or if some other motivating factor — personal, professional, terrorism or other — was in play.

---

ALSO at Bob McCarty Writes: Bomb Explodes in St. Louis Parking Garage! (Updated)

by Bob McCarty
image: Bob McCarty Writes
Source: Does St. Louis Blast Have Ties to Economic Crisis?