【英语生活】本田广东工厂罢工 在华生产全部停顿

A strike at Honda Motor Co.'s wholly owned transmission factory in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong has forced the Japanese auto maker to shut all four of its joint-venture final assembly plants in China.

Takayuki Fujii, a Beijing-based Honda spokesman, said the Tokyo auto maker is 'trying its best to resolve the situation and resume operations' at its China factories, noting that local government officials in Foshan, a city near the southern city of Guangzhou where the transmission factory is located, have stepped in in an effort to broker a resolution.

It wasn't immediately clear how long the disruption in Honda's manufacturing operations would last or how extensive a financial impact it might cause on the Japanese company's bottom line.

The strike comes at a time when China's auto market is growing in leaps and bounds, with its overall sales last year growing nearly 50% to allow China to displace the U.S. as the world's biggest auto market. Honda, trying to keep up with strong demand, announced plans just this week to expand production at some of the factories it operates in China in an effort to boost its total capacity by more than a quarter to 830,000 vehicles a year by late 2012. It wasn't clear how the strike will affect the expansion plans.

The cause of the strike at Honda's Foshan factory, Mr. Fujii said, is workers' 'dissatisfaction' with wages at the plant. The transmission plant has 1,900 employees. Workers walked off the job on May 17. They returned to work the next day, but walked off the job again on May 21 and have been on strike ever since, demanding a wage increase.

Because of the strike and the resulting shortages of transmissions, Honda suspended some vehicle-assembly operations in Guangzhou on Monday. As of Thursday, production at all four factories that Honda operates in China, including one in the city of Wuhan in Hubei province, are suspended, Mr. Fujii said.

The spokesman said Honda at this point isn't searching for an alternative supplier of transmissions, although the company has suppliers in Japan that could start shipping necessary parts to resume operations in China.

He said the workers' demand for higher wages at this point remains 'vague without specific numbers.' The factory's management and representatives of the workers are in talks with the company trying to understand the workers' specific demands.

Honda's Mr. Fujii declined to disclose information of wages at the transmission supplier, saying that it was 'too sensitive' at this point.

Japan's Nihon Keizai Shimbun newspaper reported that monthly salaries for factory employees at the supplier plant average 1,500 yuan, or about $220. The paper said workers are seeking a raise to 2,000 yuan to 2,500 yuan, which is on a par with what employees at Honda's auto assembly plants in China receive.

本田汽车公司(Honda Motor Co.)位于中国南部广东省的一家全资变速器生产厂出现罢工，导致该公司不得不关闭其在中国的全部四家合资最后组装厂。

本田汽车驻北京发言人藤井隆行(Takayuki Fujii)表示，公司正“在尽最大努力解决问题，使中国工厂恢复生产”。他还指出，佛山政府官员已介入，力争促成双方找到解决办法。本田公司的变速器厂位于佛山市，据广州不远。

目前尚不清楚本田汽车生产中断将持续多久，也不清楚生产中断将对公司利润造成多大影响。

此次罢工事件正值中国汽车市场呈跳跃式增长之际，去年中国汽车市场总体销售额增长近50%，超过美国成为世界最大的汽车市场。本田汽车为了努力满足市场的强劲需求，本周刚刚宣布计划扩大部分在华工厂的生产，以在2012年年底之前将其总产能提高四分之一以上，至年产830,000辆汽车。尚不清楚罢工对增产计划有何影响。

藤井隆行表示，佛山工厂工人因不满工资待遇而举行罢工。这家变速器生产厂拥有1,900名员工。为了表达加薪要求，该厂工人在5月17日举行罢工，第二天重返工作岗位，但在21日再度罢工，之后一直处于罢工状态。

藤井隆行称，受罢工及由此导致的变速器短缺影响，本田汽车周一暂停了部分广东汽车组装厂的生产。截至周四，该公司在中国的四家工厂全部暂停生产，其中包括其在湖北武汉的一家工厂。

藤井隆行说尽管本田公司的日本供应商能够开始向中国运送所需部件以恢复在华生产，但本田公司此刻并未寻找其它的变速器供应商。

他说工人此刻的加薪要求仍然“不明确，没有具体数字”。工厂管理层与工人代表正在谈判，公司正努力了解工人的确切要求。

藤井隆行拒绝透露变速器厂薪酬方面的信息，称此刻这些信息太敏感。

日本报纸《日本经济新闻》(Nihon Keizai Shimbun)报道称变速器厂员工的平均月工资为1,500元人民币（约合220美元），工人们试图增加到2,000元至2,500元，与本田公司在华组装厂的员工工资持平。