史无前例的中国员工罢工

所属教程:金融时报原文阅读

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2020年08月16日

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史无前例的中国员工罢工

全中国的沃尔玛雇员针对该公司的新工时制度发起了一系列罢工，这是一波史无前例的全国性罢工。成都的罢工工人背后的标语写着“沃尔玛工人，雄起！”

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

bout 回合；较量[baʊt]

Communist party 共产党

strike 罢工；打击；殴打[straɪk]

electrician 电工；电气技师[,ɪlek'trɪʃ(ə)n; ,el-; ,iːl-]

solidarity 团结，团结一致[,sɒlɪ'dærɪtɪ]

All-China Federation of Trade Unions 中华全国总工会

window-dressing 门面措施；弄虚作假['windəu,dresiŋ]

阅读马上开始，建议您计算一下阅读整篇文章所用的时间，对照下方的参考值就可以评估出您的英文阅读水平。

如果您读完全文用时为：那么，您的阅读速度相当于每分钟阅读的英文单词数

3分42秒母语为英语者的朗读速度 140

1分12秒母语为英语的中学生的阅读速度 250

1分17秒母语为英语的大学生的阅读速度 350

0分48秒母语为英语的速读高手 1000

Walmart workers launch wildcat strikes across China （480 words）

By Yuan Yang in Beijing

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Walmart staff across China have launched a series of wildcat strikes against the company’s new working-hours system, in an unprecedented bout of nationwide co-ordination by workers. Employees in one store in the southern city of Nanchang went on strike last Friday. By Monday the action had spread to a second store in Nanchang and to stores in Chengdu 1,500km away and Harbin in the country’s north-east.

“We will continue the strike until the company gives a satisfactory reply,” said Duan Yu, who works at the Walmart store in Bayi Square, Nanchang.

The strike has realised the Communist party’s fear of co-ordinated cross-country labour unrest just as China prepares to lay off millions of workers as a result of the industrial slowdown. The number of worker disputes in the country has soared in recent years, doubling from 2014 to reach 2,774 protests in 2015, according to China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based workers’ rights organisation.

“It is unprecedented for workers to organise this way,” said Anita Chan, a professor of sociology at Australian National University. “Most strikes are in one workplace. This is different — Walmart has many stores in China and uses the same management methods in all the stores. So these workers understand everyone’s situation: they are all the same.”

The rapid organisation of strikes has been helped by the mobile messaging platform WeChat. Zhang Jun, a former electrician at the Walmart store in Yantai City, Shandong, was one of several workers who set up the first Walmart Chinese Workers’ Association WeChat group.

WCWA has since multiplied into more than 40 WeChat groups, with about 20,000 members — a fifth of Walmart’s workforce in China — despite members suffering threats from Walmart management, according to Mr Zhang.

Chinese workers have extended their solidarity to Walmart’s workers in the US, who also lack the backing of an official union. “We have reason to believe that your conditions today will be ours tomorrow,” read an open letter to Walmart US workers on the WCWA blog.

“We support Walmart workers in the US for the Fight for 15,” read one placard at the Walmart Chengdu strike, referring to the campaign for wages of $15 an hour.

Chinese Walmart staff have cast aside the country’s only officially recognised union, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, which has been accused by labour activists as being apathetic to their cause. The ACFTU could not be reached for comment.

“The [official union] are basically unreceptive to workers’ opinions. They are window-dressing for Walmart,” said Zhang Liya, WCWA’s chief representative.

According to Prof Chan’s research, after two months of experimenting with official democratically elected Walmart union committees, the ACFTU signed an agreement with the company in 2006 that allowed Walmart to set up management-controlled unions instead.

“The work union [leaders] are appointed by management,” said Ms Duan. “They ask us to return to our jobs.”

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

1. Which city’s employees went on strike firstly last Friday?

A. Chengdu

B. Nanchang

C. Harbin

D. Hong Kong

2. What is the difference between this strike and the other strikes before according to the Australian professor?

A. persistent

B. violent

C. nationwide

D. transitory